d, and I'd never raise it of a dawn, and all its palms and
beaches and little basket-work houses peeping out of the deep shade, but
I'd feel glad all over again that it was there, and breathe in the
fragrant smell of it like a child happy at getting home from school. I
guess the people there helped a lot, too, for they were the handsomest
in the Pacific, and it was a regular port of call for the whalers to
take in green stuff, girls, fresh water, and firewood.

In the old days it was the Rev. John Geer who ran the missionary mill,
and taught the heathen to put their pennies in the plate and wear
pants--not that they ever did the last to any alarming extent, except in
the annual reports that were sent back to be printed East; while Mrs.
Geer she homeopathed the island and inculcurated the principles of
female virtoo in the young. But after twenty-one years of it the Geers
returned home to Connecticut, and the Tweedies were landed from the
_Olive Branch_ barkentine, to take their places in that section of the
world's vineyard.

Tweedie was a hay-colored little man, narrer chested and tallowy, but if
ever there was a copper-riveted Christian from Christianville I guess he
was _it_! Meek! Why he was happy to get slapped, he was that pleased to
turn the other cheek; and if you took away his cloak, he was the kind of
fellar who wanted you to take his panjammers extra. Had no spirit at
all, and the Kanakas walked over him scandalous. But it was his wife I
wanted to tell about, Alethea Tweedie; for if ever there was an angel
from heaven, with the prettiest blue eyes, and hair like streaming gold,
and the cherriest lips you ever saw out of a chromo, and teeth whiter
than--than--(it don't sound right to say a shark's) it was that peerless
creature.

How Tweedie could have captured such a bang-up stunner was hard to
understand then, and harder afterwards. A king on his throne might have
been glad to win Alethea Tweedie for his queen, and captains and
supercargoes would have knifed each other for a single smile, if she had
been the kind to lead them on--which, Lord bless me! was the last
thought she had in her curly head. I suppose she came from one of them
little places back East where it's all women for miles, and they rate
anything a man that can raise a whisker! Thrown away, that's what the
beach called it, and misdoubted whether Tweedie wasn't a girl, too, only
with drill trousers instead of panties.

In all them brown fac