urchins known throughout Joppa only as the Anthony boys, were
dancing and chattering aimlessly around, and near by was drawn up a
clumsy old boat where Phebe had made a comfortable niche for Miss Delano,
who every day at about this hour was afflicted with a remarkable disorder
which had grown upon her wholly of late years, and whose symptoms, so far
as she was willing to admit them, consisted of a painful heaviness of the
eyelids, a weakness in the nape of the neck, and an irresistible tendency
to retire for a brief season within herself. A little farther off still,
having taken fortune at the flood and secured De Forest at last, Bell
Masters was embarked on another kind of craft, a thorough-going,
fully-freighted flirtation, all sails set; and through the trees were
glimpses of lazily moving figures beyond, generally in twos and twos,
following some occult rule of common division peculiar to picnics. By
degrees the children wandered off up the bank, and presently there came a
shout, followed by an evident squabble. Phebe looked around uneasily.
Gerald kept on with her sport.

"One, two, three, four, five, six, seven times, Phebe. Now do better
than that."

At this juncture little Maggie ran up, her pretty brown eyes wide and her
red lips quivering. "Oh! Miss Vernor, Olly shan't do it, shall he? Do say
he shan't!"

"Do what?" asked Gerald, pausing in the act of searching for
another pebble.

"Put it in the water to swim like a duck. It isn't a duck, it's a little,
little young bird he's found in a nest, and it can't swim, it can't
hardly fly. Oh, don't let him!"

"Let him!" echoed Gerald sharply. She sprang toward the children with a
bound, almost lifting Olly off his feet as she drew him back from the
water's edge. "You cruel boy!" she cried. "Give it to me directly."

"I won't!" answered Olly, trying to shake himself free from her grasp.
"It's mine, I found it."

But the small hands held him in a grip as strong as a man's, and in
another moment Gerald had taken the poor little half-feathered creature
from him, and bidden Maggie restore it carefully to its nest.

"It's mine! It's mine! I'll have it back!" shouted Olly, angrily, after
the little girl.

Gerald took hold of him by the shoulders and turned him round toward her.
There was a great deal of hatred for the sin, and not overmuch love for
the sinner, in her face, as she looked down at him. "If you dare touch
that bird again, Olly, I'll find a punishme