mother dear."

"Is the money more than grandmother's gold dollar?" asked Ethelwyn.

"Much more."

"O, then we'll have fun spending it for folks; I'd like to. But, oh, I'm hungrier than I ever was before."

"Me, too," said Beth. "I feel a great big appeltite inside me."

They decided at once that the dining-room also was charming, with its cheery open fire of snapping pine knots, for the air outside was chilly. Then, too, there was a parrot on a pole, who greeted them with, "Well, well, well, what's all this? Did you ever?"

Miss Dorothy Stevens had the kind of face that children take to at once. There never could be any question about Aunty Stevens, who laughed every time they said anything, and who on top of their excellent breakfast, brought them in some most delicious cookies—just the kind you would know she could make, sugary and melty, entirely perfect, in fact,—to take down on the beach for luncheon.

After breakfast was over they at once started for the beach. Sierra Nevada, their colored nurse, following them with small buckets, shovels, wraps, and cushions.

"Mother, this is the nicest place, and I love the Stevenses; but why are they sad around the eyes, and dressed in black, like you? Has their father gone to Paradise too?" asked Ethelwyn, as they walked along.

"Yes, dear. Besides, the young captain whom Dorothy was going to marry went away last year and, his ship was wrecked and he has never been heard from. So they fear he was drowned."

"O, mother, can this pretty sea do that? What was it they were saying about a tide?"

Their mother tried to explain all she knew about the tides, and when she had finished, Ethelwyn said:

"I think it would be easier to remember to call it tied, and then untied."

The first Sunday that the children were at the seashore was warm and beautiful.

Mrs. Rayburn and Mrs. Stevens went to church in the picturesque stone chapel built by a sea captain, as a memorial to his daughter who was drowned on the coast some years before this.

"We'll be really better girls to stay at home some of the church time," said Ethelwyn at breakfast, "we'll go this evening with Miss Dorothy."

"My dolls are needing a bath and their best clothes for Sunday-school," said Beth to Ethelwyn, who had decided to go down on the beach; "and I can do it all comfy and nice while you are gone."

So Ethelwyn and 'Vada went for a run on the beach, and mother Elizabeth, with a look of happy care on her face, and her beloved six dolls in her arms, came out on the porch, where she had already taken a basin of water, soap, a tiny sponge, and towels.

Directly she became aware of some one near her, and looking up saw a girl with dark eyes and short, straight hair watching the proceedings with much interest, her hands clasped behind her back.

"My name is Nan," said the visitor as soon as she caught Elizabeth's eye, "Who are you? Is this your house? We've just come, and mother is in bed with a headache, and father's gone to church, so I'm roaming around seeking something to devour—"

"Does that mean eat?" said Elizabeth, a scene in one of her picture books of lions devouring their prey coming into her mind.

"I think it's what my father calls a figure of speech. He's a minister—a clergyman, you know. We've come down here to board, and he's going to have the services in the Chapel of the Heavenly Rest. Mother's sick about always, so I have to roam around—Say, I know a game; let's baptize your children."

"They don't need it; they're not born in sin—"

"Everything is," emphatically. "Don't try to teach a minister's child things, for pity's sake. I'll do the baptizing. Come along."

The rainwater barrel, half sunken in the ground, was at one of the rear corners of the house.

"We are not allowed to play in that, I think," said Elizabeth uneasily.

"That doesn't mean me, I'm older'n you. Here, give me the doll without a wig."

Down went the beloved "bawheady" with a thud that carried desolation to Beth's tender heart. Four others followed in quick succession before Beth could protest. Then clinging to Arabella, she started to run. Nan tried to run after her, but caught her foot on the barrel's brim and straightway joined the five dolls. Elizabeth opened her mouth to shriek, when in an opportune moment, a young man appeared on the scene, and speedily fished out Miss Nan, who dripped and coughed and choked; inarticulate, but evidently wrathy sounds wrestled for utterance in her throat. At last she shook herself free.

"I'm perfectly degusted with this whole preformance," she said as she went stalking off, dripping as she went.

Then the young man laughed and laughed, until he became aware of Elizabeth wistfully staring at him.

"What is it?" he asked.

"My dolls. They're baptized clear to the bottom; please get 'em out."

"I'll do it, if you will take this note to Miss Dorothy Stevens," said the young man, at once throwing off his coat and pushing up his shirt sleeve. Beth, before she trotted off, saw that he had a blue anchor on his arm. When she came back, the rescued five lay stretched on the grass in a pathetic row, and she at once ran to her prostrate children.

"You are to go to the parlor and tell Miss Dorothy all about it," she said, in passing, to their rescuer. "Your note made Miss Dorothy cry; and she was all white 'round her mouth. Thank you for the dolls," she called as an afterthought.

So busy was she drying her afflicted family that it was some time after the others had reached home that 'Vada, wildly excited, came to find Elizabeth and to tell her that Miss Dorothy's sweetheart had come back.

"From Paradise?" queried Beth, getting up at once and bristling all over with questions she wanted to ask him about that interesting place.

"Mighty nigh," said 'Vada, rolling her eyes. "He was shipwrecked on the raging main, and hit on de head wid somefin that done knock all de sense out of him, so he's pick up by some folks dat didn't know 'im, an' he went cruisin' aroun', till he come to, and, by 'me by, back to see his sweetheart."

Elizabeth went into the parlor later on, and stared so insistently at the young captain that her mother drew her gently to one side and whispered to her.

"But I'm anxious to see a sweetheart that has been in Paradise, mother," she explained.

It was one of the things for