as the _Constance Colfax_ floundered on. "Oh! I hope
Daddy's remembrance of it is all wrong now. I hope it will belie its
name."

"What's that, child?" put in the sharp voice of her neighbor.

"Why--why--if it _is_ poky I know I shall just die of homesickness for
Greensboro," confessed Janice. "How could the early settlers of these
'New Hampshire Grants' ever _dare_ give such a homely name to a
village?"

"Pshaw!" ejaculated Mrs. Scattergood. "What's a name? Prob'bly some
man named Poke settled there fust. Or pokeberries grew mighty common
there. People weren't so fanciful about names in them days. Why! my
son-in-law lives right now in a place in York State called 'Skunk's
Hollow' and the city folks that's movin' in there is tryin' to git the
post office to change the name to 'Posy Bloom.' No 'countin' for
tastes in names. My poor mother called _me_ Mahala Ann--an' me too
leetle to fight back. But I made up my mind when I was a mighty leetle
gal that if ever I had a baby I'd call it sumthin' pretty. An' I done
the right thing by all my children.

"Now here's 'Rill," pursued Mrs. Scattergood, waxing communicative.
"Her full name's Amarilla--Amarilla Scattergood. Don't you think
that's purty yourself, now?"

Janice politely agreed. But she quickly swung the conversation back to
Poketown.

"I suppose, if mills had been built there, or the summer boarders had
discovered Poketown, its name would have been changed, too. And you
haven't been up there for twelve years?"

"No, child. But that ain't long. Ain't much happens in twelve years
back East here."

Janice sighed again; but suddenly she jumped from her stool excitedly,
crying: "Oh! what place is _that_?"

She pointed far ahead. Around a rocky headland the view of a pleasant
cove had just opened. The green and blue-ribbed hills rose behind the
cove; the water lay sparkling in it. There was a vividly white church
with a heaven-pointing spire right among the big green trees.

A brown ribbon of main thoroughfare wound up from the wharf, but was
soon lost under the shade of the great trees that interlaced their
branches above it--branches which were now lush with the late spring
growth of leaves. Here and there a cottage, or larger dwelling,
appeared, most of them originally white like the church, but many
shabby from the action of wind and weather.

Over all, the warm sun spread a mantle. In the distance this bright
mantle softened the ri