ority of the voters were
endeavoring to conceal dark mussel-shells in their brown little fists.
There was no doubt that Jem's fate was sealed, when suddenly a faint
shout attracted their attention, and all started at sight of a slender
auburn-haired lassie speeding toward them from the direction of the
village. "Gee whizz, but it's Eileen Ferguson!" shrieked small Teddy
Todd, "and her temper is as fiery as her curly mop."

Certainly there was a dangerous flash in her big gray eyes and a sharp
ring in her young voice as, coming nearer, she cried: "So, Kit Bundy,
you are playin' the snake in the grass again, are you? You never did
like my brother, and now I hear you are tryin' to have him put out of
the beach-combin'. Poor Jemmy, who is too sickly to go to the
fishin'-banks, and has so looked forward to the fall in hopes of earnin'
a few dollars for the mither! I should think ye'd be ashamed of
yourself! Dickson, the bathin'-master tould me how you were talkin' to
the others; but you won't mind him, will you, boys?" And there was that
in the appealing, half tearful glance which the earnest little sister
turned upon them that made most of her hearers look sheepish, and become
deeply absorbed in stirring up the sand with their toes.

But Kit, was furious. "What?" he roared; "be dictated to by a girl? Not
if I know our combers. Go on, fellows, and vote as you intended; while,
Miss Impudence, the sooner you take yourself off the better."

Instinctively, however, Eileen turned to young Woolley. "Oh, Bert,
Bert!" she wailed, "don't let them throw my Jemmy out. He has had such a
dreadful summer, and this--this will break his heart. We need the money
so much, and niver did he dream his old friends could treat him so."
Then all at once her wrath dissolved in a girlish burst of tears.

"Pepper me if I can stand that, bad luck or not," growled Ned, hurriedly
picking up a white shell and flinging it into the hat; and as boys, like
older people, are very much akin to a flock of sheep, the majority
followed suit, and Jem Ferguson was, as in former years, numbered with
the beach-combers, the three purple shells cast by Kit and two of his
chums not being sufficient to rule him out.

"A thousand thanks, boys! You are blissid darlints, ivery one of
ye--barrin' that trio," exclaimed Eileen, who, though American born, in
moments of excitement sometimes betrayed her ancestry by her speech.

When, then, on the morning of September 18th, t