Shoals? and what are they, that you should go to see them?"

"I'm not going to see them--there's nothing to see, unless you like sea
and rocks. I am going for the air, and because I must go somewhere, and
I am tired of everywhere else. O, they're out in the Atlantic--sea all
round them--queer, barren places. I am so glad I've got you, Lois! I
don't know a soul that's to be there--can't guess what we shall find;
but I've got you, and I can get along."

"Do people go there just for health?"

"O, a few, perhaps; but the thing is what I am after--novelty; they are
hardly the fashion yet."

"That is the very oddest reason for doing or not doing things!" said
Lois. "Because it's the fashion! As if that made it pleasant, or
useful."

"It does!" said Mrs. Wishart. "Of course it does. Pleasant, yes, and
useful too. My dear, you don't want to be out of the fashion?"

"Why not, if the fashion does not agree with me?"

"O my dear, you will learn. Not to agree with the fashion, is to be out
with the world."

"With one part of it," said Lois merrily.

"Just the part that is of importance. Never mind, you will learn. Lois,
I am so sleepy, I can not keep up any longer. I must curl down and take
a nap. I just kept myself awake till we reached Shampuashuh. You had
better do as I do. My dear, I am very sorry, but I can't help it."

So Mrs. Wishart settled herself upon a heap of bags and wraps, took off
her bonnet, and went to sleep. Lois did not feel in the least like
following her example. She was wide-awake with excitement and
expectation, and needed no help of entertainment from anybody. With her
thoroughly sound mind and body and healthy appetites, every detail and
every foot of the journey was a pleasure to her; even the corner of a
drawing-room car on a night train. It was such change and variety! and
Lois had spent all her life nearly in one narrow sphere and the
self-same daily course of life and experience. New York had been one
great break in this uniformity, and now came another. Islands in the
sea! Lois tried to fancy what they would be like. So much resorted to
already, they must be very charming; and green meadows, shadowing
trees, soft shores and cosy nooks rose up before her imagination. Mr.
Caruthers and his family were at Saratoga, that was well; but there
would be other people, different from the Shampuashuh type; and Lois
delighted in seeing new varieties of humankind as well as new portions
of the earth wh