inquired, with his head on one side, like an
inquisitive robin.

Debby repeated her question, and illustrated it by sending a stone
skimming over the water in the most scientific manner. Mr. Joe was
painfully aware that this was not at all "the thing," that his sisters
never did so, and that Seguin would laugh confoundedly, if he caught
him at it; but Debby looked so irresistibly fresh and pretty under her
rose-lined parasol that he was moved to confess that he had done such a
thing, and to sacrifice his gloves by poking in the sand, that he might
indulge in a like unfashionable pastime.

"You'll be at the hop to-night, I hope, Miss Wilder," he observed,
introducing a topic suited to a young lady's mental capacity.

"Yes, indeed; for dancing is one of the joys of my life, next to
husking and making hay"; and Debby polked a few steps along the beach,
much to the edification of a pair of old gentlemen, serenely taking
their first constitutional.

"Making what?" cried Mr. Joe, poking after her.

"Hay; ah, that is the pleasantest fun in the world,--and better
exercise, my mother says, for soul and body, than dancing till dawn in
crowded rooms, with everything in a state of unnatural excitement. If
one wants real merriment, let him go into a new-mown field, where all
the air is full of summer odors, where wild-flowers nod along the
walls, where blackbirds make finer music than any band, and sun and
wind and cheery voices do their part, while windrows rise, and great
loads go rumbling through the lanes with merry brown faces atop. Yes,
much as I like dancing, it is not to be compared with that; for in the
one case we shut out the lovely world, and in the other we become a
part of it, till by its magic labor turns to poetry, and we harvest
something better than dried buttercups and grass."

As she spoke, Debby looked up, expecting to meet a glance of
disapproval; but something in the simple earnestness of her manner had
recalled certain boyish pleasures as innocent as they were hearty,
which now contrasted very favorably with the later pastimes in which
fast horses, and that lower class of animals, fast men, bore so large a
part. Mr. Joe thoughtfully punched five holes in the sand, and for a
moment Debby liked the expression of his face; then the old
listlessness returned, and, looking up, he said, with an air of ennui
that was half sad, half ludicrous, in one so young and so generously
endowed with youth, health, a