n make," interrupted Mabel (she is my
cousin's wife), "with his dozen children and a wife to support, and only
one trap to do it on."

"For my part," interposed the oldest daughter, with a pert motion of her
head, "I am tired to death having to save clothes for that--You needn't
look so shocked, mamma. Yes, I am. It's always 'Take care of that
petticoat; Betty can use it;' or, 'That dress can be turned and made
over nicely for the twins.' I declare I don't get a new dress but the
whole Scud family troop over and inspect it, and criticise it, and
quarrel over it, and gloat over it the first day I wear it. I caught two
of their boys fighting over which of them should have Reginald's summer
ulster when he was done with it."

"I shall give it to Tommy," observed her mother, in an absent,
comfortable tone.

After breakfast my cousin rowed over to the station; the eldest two
children took their guest, a boy of about sixteen, out fishing; while I
eagerly accompanied Mabel across the rocks and fields to Scud's house--a
little rented hut, hidden and sheltered from the east winds behind a
huge barrack of a boarding-house.

How clear the day! How warm the sun! How hospitable this forbidding,
granite-clad North Shore! As I look back upon that memorable morning it
seemed as if the bay could never be ruffled by any but the tenderest
breezes, or its bright water reflect any but the dazzling glare of the
hottest sun. Clouds hovered over us, delicate and fleecy as the feathers
of the marabou, and white and curly as the feathers of the ostrich. They
radiated from a centre in translucent films, and shot out monstrous
ciliated fingers like a fan. Such a sky was never seen in my part of
the country, and I attributed this ravishing cloud phenomenon to the
peculiar influence of the sea, being too ignorant to notice that these
streamers shot out from the west. The stillness was intoxicating after
the scurry of the school-room. And now even the water made no ripples on
the beach. The sea was motionless, like a distilled elixir in a serrated
alembic.

We stopped before a low, pitch-roofed house that looked as if it
contained three rooms at most. The yard was piled up with wreckage and
drift-wood. Who ever heard of a fisherman buying kindling? Within the
gate four children were playing with twice as many cats and kittens.
They were all fighting like animals between themselves for a plateful of
scraps of fried fish. A baby would grab a piece