d the simplest words for her benefit, words of one syllable, and
unconsciously elevated his voice somewhat, as though that would make
her understand better; her wits seemed to him always of the slowest.
The Sister followed his directions and imitated his motions with
painstaking minuteness. She did very well until a large porpoise rolled
up his dark, glistening back close alongside, when, dropping the
sail-rope with a scream, she crouched down at Melvyna's feet and hid
her face in her veil. Carrington from that day could get no more
passengers for his paroquet boat. But he sailed up and down alone in
his little craft, and when that amusement palled he took the remainder
of the scarlet and green paint and adorned the shells of various
sea-crabs and other crawling things, so that the little Sister was met
one afternoon by a whole procession of unearthly creatures, strangely
variegated, proceeding gravely in single file down the beach from the
pen where they had been confined. Keith pointed out to her, however,
the probability of their being much admired in their own circles as
long as the hues lasted, and she was comforted.

They strolled down the beach now every afternoon, sometimes two,
sometimes three, sometimes four when Melvyna had no cooking to watch,
no bread to bake; for she rejected with scorn the omnipresent hot
biscuit of the South, and kept her household supplied with light loaves
in spite of the difficulties of yeast. Sister St. Luke had learned to
endure the crabs, but she still fled from the fiddlers when they
strayed over from their towns in the marsh; she still went carefully
around the great jelly fish sprawling on the beach, and regarded from a
safe distance the beautiful blue Portuguese men-of-war, stranded
unexpectedly on the dangerous shore, all their fair voyagings over.
Keith collected for her the brilliant sea-weeds, little flecks of color
on the white sand, and showed her their beauties; he made her notice
all the varieties of shells, enormous conches for the tritons to blow,
and beds of wee pink ovals and cornucopias, plates and cups for the
little web-footed fairies. Once he came upon a sea bean.

"It has drifted over from one of the West Indian islands," he said,
polishing it with his handkerchief--"one of the islands--let us say
Miraprovos--a palmy tropical name, bringing up visions of a volcanic
mountain, vast cliffs, a tangled gorgeous forest, and the soft lapping
wash of tropical seas. Is