ully, Juliet, you are not used to this."

Juliet marched across the narrow bridge with firm foot and steady eye.
Emily followed nervously.

On the island they found Mr. Rowles; and Philip, who, not meeting his
mother on the road from the station, had hurried home again. He and
his father stared at Juliet.

"Well, I never!" cried Mr. Rowles. "Whom have we here?"

"Oh, Ned," said his wife soothingly, "it is your own little niece,
Juliet Mitchell. I thought you'd like to have her here a bit, seeing
as they are none too well off, and she's never been in the real
country at all till now."

Rowles whistled doubtfully. He stood there in his shirt sleeves, with
his thumbs in his waistcoat pockets, and his black straw hat pushed
back on his head. His eyes were fixed on his niece's face with a gaze
of inquiry, and a sort of dislike seemed to grow up in his heart and
in hers.

"Oh, very well," he said, at length. "Where's your box?"

Juliet did not know what he meant.

"Where's your box--your luggage?"

"Haven't got any," said Juliet.

"Then where's your Sunday frock?"

"Haven't got one," said Juliet; "it's at the pawn-shop."

Rowles whistled more fiercely.

"I say, Emma, I'll be bound you found that fellow Mitchell in
bed--now, didn't you?"

"Yes, Ned, I did; because--"

"I knew it. And I never knew any good come of lying in bed by day and
sitting up at night to do your work, or pretend to do it."

"But that is his business, Ned."

"Then it is a bad business, say I."

"And people must have morning papers. Besides, Thomas is ill."

"And likely to be ill, I should say, sleeping by day and working by
night."

Mrs. Rowles drew her husband aside to tell him quietly the condition
in which she had found his sister. He was softened by the sad story,
but persisted in thinking that all Mitchell's misfortunes arose from
the fact that he worked by night and slept by day. "It is going
against nature," he said. "Why, the sun shows you what you ought to
do. You don't catch the sun staying up after daylight or going down in
the morning."

"But the moon and stars are up by night," said Mrs. Rowles laughing.

"The moon's a she; and as for the stars, they are little uns, and
children are always contrary."

Mr. Rowles grew good-tempered over his own wit, and at length allowed
that Thomas Mitchell's mode of life was a necessary evil, but an evil
all the same. Then he said that he had not had any idea that the
Mitchells