painter to throw
over a stub sunk above high-water mark.

"Good-morning! What do you think of it?" he asked Louise, with a
cordial smile that belonged to him.

"It is lovely!" she said. "Really wonderful! I suppose you have lived
here so long it does not appeal to you as strongly as to the
new-beholder?"

"I don't know about that. It's the finest place in the world; I think.
There's no prettier shore along the Atlantic coast than The Beaches."

"Perhaps you are right. I do not know much about the New England
coast," she confessed. "And that--where the spray dashes up so high,
even on this calm morning?"

"Gull Rocks. The danger spot of all danger spots along the outer line
of the Cape. In rough weather all one can see out there is a cauldron
of foam."

Before she could express herself again the purr of a swiftly moving
motor car attracted her attention, and she turned to see a low gray
roadster coming toward them from the north. The Shell Road, before
reaching the shore, swerved northward and ran along the bluffs on which
the bungalows and summer cottages were built. These dwellings faced
the smooth white road, the sea being behind them.

As Louise looked the car slowed down and stopped, the engine still
throbbing. A girl was at the wheel. She was perhaps fifteen, without
a hat and with two plaits of yellow hair lying over her slim shoulders.

"Hey, Ford!" she shouted to the young man, "haven't you been up to
Cap'n Abe's yet? Daddy's down at the dock now and he's in a tearing
hurry."

She gazed upon Lou Grayling frankly but made no sign of greeting. She
did not wait, indeed, for a reply from the young man but threw in the
clutch and the car shot away.

"I've got to go up to the store," he said. "L'Enfant Terrible is
evidently going to Paulmouth to meet the early train. Must be somebody
coming."

Louise looked at him quickly, her expression one of perplexity. She
supposed this child in the car was the daughter of Lawford's employer.
But whoever before heard a fisherman speak just as he did? Had Cap'n
Abe been at home she certainly would have tapped that fount of local
knowledge for information regarding Lawford. He did not look so much
the fisherman type without his jersey and high boots.

"How do you like the old fellow up at the store?" Lawford asked, as
they strolled along together. "Isn't he a curious old bird?"

"You mean my Uncle Amazon?"

"Goodness! He _is_ your uncle, too,