the Atlantic ocean than of an easy, delightful pleasure bottling up
knowledge for some possible future use. While Miss Ray was thus
straggling with the ocean, and Bessie and Tom were sporting like two
fish,--for both were at home in the water,--Mr. Gordon was looking
around the Cliff with his business eye wide open. As he walked along the
road back from the shore, and saw the fine views which it afforded him,
he admired the judgment of Eastman Johnson, the artist, in building his
summer-house and studio there. A little farther on, upon the Bluffs, the
highest point on the island, he noted the house of Charles O'Conor with
the little brick building close by for his library; he then decided that
an island which could give such physical benefit as this was said to
have given to Mr. O'Conor, would not be a bad one in which to invest. So
the value of the Cliff or Bluffs he placed in his note-book for future
use.

[Illustration: VIEWS IN NANTUCKET, MASS.]

At the same time that Mr. Gordon was exploring the land Mrs. Gordon
was in the office of two gallant young civil engineers, exploring the
harbor! In fact she was studying a map of the surroundings of the
harbor, which these young men had made to aid them in their work of
building a jetty from Brant Point to the bell-buoy. As she examined it
she found it hard to believe that Nantucket had ever stood next to
Boston and Salem, as the third commercial town in the Commonwealth. She
sympathized deeply with the people of the years gone by who had been
obliged to struggle with such a looking harbor as the map revealed, and
said that she should go home to learn more of the "Camels," which she
honored more than ever. When they told her that probably three years
more than the two that had been given to the work were needed to finish
the jetty, and that there was a slight possibility that another one
would be needed for the best improvement of the harbor, she thought her
interest in the matter could be better kept alive If she should hunt up
her old trigonometry and learn that all over again! With this idea she
left the young men, whose kindness to her she fully appreciated, and
went to find her party. She soon found, on the yacht ready to go back to
town, all but Miss Ray; she had chosen to take one of the many carriages
which she had noticed were constantly taking passengers back and forth
from the town to the Cliff, at the rate of ten cents apiece.

Later in the afternoon their