her coming, that she did not know whether
the aunt still resided in Hartford or was underground. These two
elderly ladies would call her stark mad. Perhaps she was.

"And you have seen ... drunken men?" Prudence's tones were full of
suppressed horror.

"Often. A very small settlement, mostly natives. There was a
trader--a man who bought copra and pearls. Not a bad man as men
go, but he would sell whisky and gin. Over here men drink because
they are lonely; and when they drink too hard and too long, they
wind up on the beach."

The spinsters stared at her blankly.

Ruth went on to explain. "When a man reaches the lowest scale
through drink, we call him a beachcomber. I suppose the phrase--the
word--originally meant a man who searched for food on the beach.
The poor things! Oh, it was quite dreadful. It is queer, but men of
education and good birth fall swiftest and lowest."

She sent a covert glance toward the young man. She alone of them
all knew that he was on the first leg of the terrible journey to
the beach. Somebody ought to talk to him, warn him. He was all
alone, like herself.

"What are those odd-looking things on the roofs?" she asked of Ah
Cum.

"Pigs and fish, to fend off the visitations of the devil." Ah Cum
smiled. "After all, I believe we Chinese have the right idea. The
devil is on top, not below. We aren't between him and heaven; he is
between us and heaven."

The spinsters had no counter-philosophy to offer; so they turned to
Ruth, who had singularly and unconsciously invested herself with
glamour, the glamour of adventure, which the old maids did not
recognize as such because they were only tourists. This child at
once alarmed and thrilled them. She had come across the wicked
South Seas which were still infested with cannibals; she had seen
drunkenness and called men beachcombers; who was this moment as
innocent as a babe, and in the next uttered some bitter wisdom it
had taken a thousand years of philosophy to evolve. And there was
that dress of hers! She must be warned that she had been imposed
upon.

"You'll pardon an old woman, Miss Enschede," said Sister Prudence;
"but where in this world did you get that dress?"

Ruth picked up both sides of the skirt and spread it, looking down.
"Is there anything wrong with it?"

"Wrong? Why, you have been imposed upon somewhere. That dress is
thirty years old, if a day."

"Oh!" Ruth laughed softly. "That is easily explained. I haven't
much