orchards, whose
every crop is a fresh conquest of man over Nature in this one of her
most niggardly phases, by desolate cabins and lonely farms, until at a
sudden turn the broad, beautiful sea swept up to glorify the scene. And
while Miselle with flushed cheeks and tearful eyes drank in the ever-new
delight of its presence, Monsieur began a story of how a man, almost a
stranger to him, had come one winter evening and begged him for God's
love to go and help him search for the body of his brother, reported by
a wandering madwoman to be lying on this beach, and how he begged so
piteously that the listener could not choose but go.

And as Monsieur vividly pictured that long, lonely drive through the
midnight woods, the desolate monotony of the beach, along whose margin
curled the foam-wreaths of the rising tide, while beyond phosphorescent
lights played over a world of weltering black waters,--as he told how,
after hours of patient search, they found the poor sodden corpse and
tenderly cared for it,--as Monsieur quietly told his tale and never knew
that he was a hero, Miselle turned shuddering from sea and beach and the
mocking play of the crested waves, as they leaped in the sunshine and
then sank back to sport hideously with other corpses hidden beneath
their smiling surface.

Presently the sea was again shut off by woodland, and the scattered
houses closed into a village, nay, a town, the town of Sandwich; and
swinging through it at an easy rate, the carriage halted before an
odd-looking building, consisting of a quaint old inn, porched and
gambrel-roofed, joined in most unholy union to a big, square, staring
box, of true Yankee architecture.

Descending with reluctance, even after three hours of immobility, from
her breezy seat, Miselle followed Madame into the quiet house, whose
landlord, like many another man, makes moan for "the good old times"
when summer tourists and commercial travellers filled his rooms and the
long dining-table, now unoccupied, save by our travellers and two young
men connected with the glass-manufactories.

Rest, plenty of cool water, and dinner having restored the energies of
the travellers, it was proposed that they should proceed at once to the
Glass Works. And now, indeed, did Fortune smile upon this band of
adventurous spirits; for when the question of a guide arose, mine host
of the inn announced himself not only willing to act in that capacity,
but eminently qualified therefor by l