as about his own age; while Polly claimed her own especial
find, Dan, for escort and guide.

"Oh, what a queer, queer place!" she prattled, as, after peering
cautiously into the depths of the Devil's Jaw, they wended their way to
safer slopes, where the rocks were wreathed with hardy vines, and the sea
stretched smiling into the sunlit distance. "Do you like it here, Dan?"

"Yes: I'm having a fine time," was the cheery answer, for the moment all
the pricks and goads forgotten.

"Are you going to stay long?" asked Miss Polly.

"Until September," answered Dan.

"Oh, that's fine!" said his small companion, happily. "Then I'll get dad
to bring me down here to see you again, Dan; and you can come up in your
boat to see me, and we'll be friends,--real true friends. I haven't had a
real true friend," said Miss Polly, perching herself on a ledge of rock,
where, in her pink dress and flower-trimmed hat, she looked like a bright
winged butterfly,--"not since I lost Meg Murray."

"Lost her? Did she die?"

"No," was the soft sighing answer. "It was much worse than that. You see"
(Miss Polly's tone became confidential), "it was last summer, when I had
the whooping cough. Did you ever have the whooping cough?"

"I believe I did," replied Dan, whose memory of such minor ills was by no
means clear.

"Then you know how awful it is. You can't go to school or out to play, or
anywhere. I had to stay in our own garden and grounds by myself, because
all the girls' mothers were afraid of me. The doctor said I must be out of
doors, so I had a play house away down by the high box hedge in the maze;
and took my dolls and things out there, and made the best of it. And then
Meg found me. She was coming down the lane one day, and heard me talking
to my dolls. I had to talk to them because there was no one else. And she
peeped through the hedge and asked if she could come in and see them. I
told her about the whooping cough, but she said she wasn't afraid: that
she had had it three times already, and her mother was dead and wouldn't
mind if she took it again. So she came in, and we played all the morning;
and she came the next day and the next for weeks and weeks. Oh, we did
have the grandest times together! You see, dad was away, and mamma was
sick, and there was no one to bother us. I used to bring out apples and
cookies and chocolate drops, and we had parties under the trees, and we
promised to be real true friends forever. I gave her my