e ventured to go there alone as she
did, in which case I should have no adventure to write about. But
people usually spoke of it for shortness' sake as the "Oven," and she
had no idea that Satan had any thing to do with the place, nor, for
that matter, have I.

It was from Mrs. Downs that she first heard about the Oven. Mrs. Downs
had been there once, years before. It was a "natteral curosity," she
said, with all sorts of strange sea-creatures growing in pools, and
the rocks were red and quite beautiful. It wasn't a dangerous place,
either, and here Mr. Downs confirmed her. You couldn't get in after
half-tide, but anybody could stay in for a week in ordinary weather,
and not be drowned. There were plenty of places a-top of the cave,
where you could sit and keep dry even at high water, though it would
be "sort of poky," too. Eyebright's imagination was fired by this
description, and she besought papa to take her there at once. He
promised that he would "some day," but the day seemed long in coming,
as holidays always do to busy people; and June passed, and July, and
still the Oven was unvisited, though Eyebright did not forget her wish
to go.

August came at last,--the delicious north-of-Maine August, with hot,
brilliant noons, and cool, balmy nights, so different from the murky,
steamy August of everywhere else,--and was half over, when one
afternoon papa came in with a piece of news.

"What should you say, Eyebright, if I were to go off for the whole day
to-morrow?" he asked.

"Why, papa Bright, what do you mean? You can't! There isn't anywhere
to go to."

"There's Malachi."

"Oh, papa, not in our little boat!"

"No, in a schooner belonging to Mr. Downs's brother. It has just put
in with a load of lumber, and the captain has offered me a passage if
I like to go. He expects to get back to-morrow evening about nine
o'clock. Should you be lonesome, do you think, Eyebright, if I went?"

"Not a bit," cried Eyebright, delighted at the idea of papa's having a
sail. "I'll do something or other that is pleasant. Perhaps I'll go
and stay all day with Mrs. Downs. Anyhow, I'll not be lonely. I'm glad
the captain asked you to go, papa. It'll be nice, I think."

But next morning, when she had given papa his early breakfast, watched
him across the causeway, and seen the sails of the schooner diminish
into two white specks in the distance, she was not sure that it was
nice. She sang at her dish-washing and clattered her cu