ing her romantic history, and what is the cause of the
peculiar moods you spoke of last summer? I noticed it last evening, and
it pained me very much."

"It's hard tellin'," was the answer, "she's a girl that's given ter
broodin' a good deal, an' mebbe when she was told the facts she began
ter suspect some o' her ancestors would be lookin' her up some day. She
allus has been a good deal by herself sence she got her schoolin', an'
most likely doin' lots o' thinkin'. But Telly's all right," he added
briefly, "an' the most willin' an' tender-hearted creetur I ever seen or
heard on. She'll make an amazin' good wife fer some man, if she ever
finds the right 'un."

It is needless to say some one else in the boat echoed that belief in
thought. When they reached the island Uncle Terry landed, and going to
the top of a cliff, scanned the sea for signs of fish.

"Mackerel's curus fish," he observed to Albert, who had followed.
"They's a good deal like some wimmin: ye never know whar ter find 'em.
Yesterday mornin' that cove jest inside o' the pint was 'live with 'em,
an' to-day I can't see a sign o' one. We better sit here an' wait a
spell till I sight a school."

To a dreamer like Albert Page the limitless ocean view he now enjoyed
lifted him far above mackerel and their habits. His mind was also
occupied a good deal by Telly, and while he desired to please the kindly
old man who imagined fishing would entertain him, his heart was not in
it.

"Don't let us worry about the mackerel, Uncle Terry," he observed as
they seated themselves on top of a cliff, "this lone, uninhabited island
and the view here will content me until your fish are hungry."

"It allus sets me thinkin' too," was the answer, "an' wonderin' whar we
cum from and what we air here for. An' our stay is so amazin' short
besides! We air born, grow up, work a spell, git old and die, an' that's
the end. Why, it don't seem only last year when I cum to the Cape, an'
it's goin' nigh on to thirty now, an' I'm a'most through my spell o'
life. What puzzles me," he added, "is what's the good o' bein' born at
all if ye've got ter die so soon! An' more'n all that, if life's the
Lord's blessin', as the widder b'lieves, why are so many only born to
suffer, or be crippled all their lives? An' why are snakes an' all sorts
o' vermin, to say nothin' o' cheatin' lawyers, like Frye, ever born at
all?"

Albert smiled at the odd coupling of Frye with vermin. "There are a good
man