watch
you then, and shall feel perfectly easy about you."

"Where are the lunch baskets, mamma?"

"Over there behind that tree."

"What is that covered up with that grey blanket?"

"Something Mr. Atkinson brought."

"I didn't see it in our boat. May I peep at it?"

"No, dear, I think I wouldn't. It isn't just the thing to indulge one's
curiosity about such matters. Mr. Atkinson had it sent up here, and as
he meant it as a sort of a little secret for you children, it wouldn't
be polite to try to find it out."

So Dimple with her little maid, walked away, not, however, without
several backward looks at the grey blanket.

There was not very much to see on the island, after all, for it was a
small place, and the most interesting discovery they made was a pile of
big rocks at the upper end of the narrow strip of land. Here they
established themselves to watch the boats and the fishers.

"I think Rock has caught a fish," exclaimed Dimple, when she had been
watching for some time. "See, Bubbles, he is hauling in his line as fast
as he can. There goes the reel again. Oh, I hope if he must catch them,
that he will catch big ones. See that lovely red flower growing down
there between the rocks. I wish you would get it for me, Bubbles, and
then we will go back to where mamma is. I am as hungry as I don't know
what, and I want to ask mamma for a turnover or a biscuit or something.
Get me the flower, Bubbles, and I'll watch to see if Rock really did
catch a fish."

Bubbles promptly obeyed, but she had just stooped to pick the flower
when she heard a piercing shriek from Dimple. Mrs. Dallas heard it, too,
and came running in the greatest alarm, to find, when she reached the
spot, Dimple almost paralyzed with fright, continuing her screams, while
Bubbles, dancing about, getting more and more excited every minute, was
valiantly hurling pieces of rock at a large black snake.

"Hyar come anudder," she cried, as a stone went flying through the air.
"Take dat. Hit yuh, didn't it? Skeer Miss Dimple outen her senses, will
yuh? Yuh gre't, ugly black crittur!" and rock after rock came with such
force and precision that the unfortunate snake, in a few minutes, was
"daid as a do' nail," as Bubbles expressed it.

Dimple clung to her mother, trembling with fright, even after the snake
was killed.

"Is it dead, really dead? Oh, Bubbles!" she quavered. "What would I have
done if you hadn't been so brave?"

Bubbles laughed. "Dat wan