h you, and make a spade now," replied the other,
who wanted to be quiet and think, "and you and Em'line can dig in the
sand."

Emmeline was sitting nearby, stringing together some gorgeous blossoms
on a tendril of liana. Months of sun and ozone had made a considerable
difference in the child. She was as brown as a gipsy and freckled, not
very much taller, but twice as plump. Her eyes had lost considerably
that look as though she were contemplating futurity and immensity--not
as abstractions, but as concrete images, and she had lost the habit of
sleep-walking.

The shock of the tent coming down on the first night she was tethered
to the scull had broken her of it, helped by the new healthful
conditions of life, the sea-bathing, and the eternal open air. There is
no narcotic to excel fresh air.

Months of semi-savagery had made also a good deal of difference in
Dick's appearance. He was two inches taller than on the day they
landed. Freckled and tanned, he had the appearance of a boy of twelve.
He was the promise of a fine man. He was not a good-looking child, but
he was healthy-looking, with a jolly laugh, and a daring, almost
impudent expression of face.

The question of the children's clothes was beginning to vex the mind of
the old sailor. The climate was a suit of clothes in itself. One was
much happier with almost nothing on. Of course there were changes of
temperature, but they were slight. Eternal summer, broken by torrential
rains, and occasionally a storm, that was the climate of the island;
still, the "childer" couldn't go about with nothing on.

He took some of the striped flannel and made Emmeline a kilt. It was
funny to see him sitting on the sand, Emmeline standing before him with
her garment round her waist, being tried on; he, with a mouthful of
pins, and the housewife with the scissors, needles, and thread by his
side.

"Turn to the lift a bit more," he'd say, "aisy does it. Stidy
so--musha! musha! where's thim scissors? Dick, be holdin' the end of
this bit of string till I get the stitches in behint. Does that hang
comfortable? well, an' you're the trouble an' all. How's THAT? That's
aisier, is it? Lift your fut till I see if it comes to your knees. Now
off with it, and lave me alone till I stitch the tags to it."

It was the mixture of a skirt and the idea of a sail, for it had two
rows of reef points; a most ingenious idea, as it could be reefed if
the child wanted to go paddling, or in win