cing shadows; what fine aspirations unfold in hearts that
are brave and hopeful and kind. Presently, we had set a fleet of new
schooners afloat, put a score of new traps in the water, proved
fair-dealing and prosperity the selfsame thing, visited the sick of five
hundred miles, established a hospital--transformed our wretched coast,
indeed, into a place no longer ignorant of jollity and thrift and
healing. The doctor projected all with lively confidence--his eyes
aflash, his lean, white hand eloquent, his tongue amazingly active and
persuasive--and with an insight so sagacious and well-informed, a
purpose so pure and wise, that he revealed himself (though we did not
think of it then) not only as a man of heart but of conspicuous sense.
It did not enter our minds to distrust him: because our folk are not
sophisticated in polite overreaching, not given to the vice of
suspicion, and because--well, he was what he was.

My sister's face was aglow--most divinely radiant--with responsive faith
and enthusiasm; and as for me----

"Leave me get down," I gasped, at last, to the doctor, "or I'll bust
with delight, by heaven!"

He laughed, but unclasped his hands and let me slip from his knee; and
then I began to strut the floor, my chest puffed out to twice its
natural extent.

"By heaven!" I began. "If that Jagger----"

The clock struck ten. "David Roth," my sister exclaimed, lifting her
hands in mock horror, "'tis fair scandalous for a lad o' your years t'
be up 't this hour!"

"Off to bed with you, you rascal!" roared the doctor.

"I'll not go," I protested.

"Off with you!"

"Not I."

"Catch un, doctor!" cried my sister.

"An you can, zur!" I taunted.

If he could? Ecod! He snatched at me, quick as a cat; but I dodged his
hand, laughed in his face and put the table between us. With an agility
beyond compare--with a flow of spirits like a gale of wind--he vaulted
the broad board. The great, grave fellow appeared of a sudden to my
startled vision in midair--his arms and legs at sixes and sevens--his
coat-tails flapping like a loose sail--his mouth wide open in a
demoniacal whoop--and I dropped to the floor but in the bare nick of
time to elude him. Uproarious pursuit ensued: it made my sister limp and
pain-stricken and powerless with laughter; it brought our two maids from
the kitchen and kept them hysterically screaming in the doorway, the
lamp at a fearsome angle; it tumbled the furniture about with rollicking