T

Chapter VII. HE incoming tide was rippling softly on the flats, covering them and creeping up over the strip of stones and pebbles toward the fine, white sand of the beach beyond. Dinner over, Louise Benton and the youthful candidate for the priesthood were standing at the head of the rough stone steps that led down over the bulkhead. The sun had set, but the glories in the brilliantly colored sky still lingered

and were reflected in the water. Schools of small fish, that had been driven in well towards the shore by some finny enemy, ruffled the surface of of the lake-like or leapt, glistening, out of their ele

ment.

expanse,

Louise sighed. "A night to be on the water. If only the tide were further in I would take you out in the canoe; but just now nothing but a flat bottomed boat could pass over, and I draw the line at a tub." She turned towards the young man.

Edward Prior, the divinity student, sent from the school at Middletown each week to take charge of the services in the Southcreek Episcopal chapel, was a man who would easily find followers in any environment. Tall and athletic, he Tall and athletic, he was a fine specimen of young manhood. When referring to him, people were wont to use the expression, "muscular Christianity."

"The moon will be up later," said he. "When we get back from the

mail I will take you for a paddle, or, excuse me, you may take me, for 'paddle your own canoe.' as usual, I suppose you prefer to

For a short distance they walked along the bulkhead, and then striking across the golf links, a short cut brought them to the village street. The thoroughfare was gay with life, shore people and villagers all wending their way to "the center," for the sorting and giving out of the evening mail was the most important event of the day in Southcreek.

Past the ancient cemetery they which stood the oldest church, a went and up the hill, on the top of

square, roomy building, colonial pillars at the front, and belfry towering high; past the dry-goods and grocery store, the evening meeting place for the men of the village; past the tiny Episcopal chapel, and thence to the shoe store. Here a noisy, laughing crowd almost entirely made up of young people was assembled. Groups were standing on the walk and out as far as the middle of the wide street. Others were seated in rows on the wooden steps of the store, or along the narrow piazza. Everywhere was the chatter of voices, interspersed with laughter, whistling, and singing, as greetings and gossip were exchanged.

Louise and Edward made their way through the crowd on the steps. and entered the building. A corner had been appropriated by Uncle

Sam, and a suitable partition, with rows of numbered boxes, screened the post-office. Here the post mistress stood behind the closed shutter awaiting the coming of the mail. At that moment Ephraim Pond appeared making his way with some importance up the steps and through the doorway. He was a short man, but possessed of great strength, and his back, upon which he bore the heavy mail bag, was bent, the result of years of such service. Now the post-mistress, alert and quick in her movements, was busy stamping and sorting. Soon she threw open the shutter, and Louise and Edward were among the first to receive their letters. Asking pardon, the young man hastily tore open an envelope and read the enclosure.

"It is as I thought," he said. "The Bishop thinks best to give me a change of work. I am rather disappointed. I like it here so much. I have been coming here so regularly for a year past, that I feel very much at home."

Two very pretty girls had come in with the first crowding rush from outside.

"Are we going to have choir practice, to-night, Mr. Prior?" asked Florilla Bill, the younger of the two. "If so, who will play the organ? Nan Metcalf told me to let you know that she would not be here. She has gone to New Haven."

Marianna, the elder sister, had passed to the other side of Miss Benton.

"Oh, indeed," said Mr. Prior, "perhaps your sister-Miss Bill," leaning forward to look at the latter. "It is jolly to have you back. in Southcreek. You will play for us to-night, will you not?"

There was formality in the young girl's manner as she voiced her refusal, and turning abruptly, she stooped to say something to a little child standing near.

"I see my finish," said Miss Benton, laughing, "Moons and canoes are not for me, and, oh! you had forgotten all about your choir, Ned Prior! What a joke on you! So I will not paddle my own canoe, but if you will ask me with deep enough humility I will come over to your hot, stuffy, dearly beloved chapel and paddle your-what is it? A melodeon?”

"Thank you, Louise," said the young man, gravely. He spoke to her, but his eyes were looking beyond her, and his searching, somewhat saddened glance rested for a moment upon Marianna's troubled face. "Are you coming, Miss Bill?" he asked.

"No, my voice has left me."

"You, Florrie, will not desert us?" he said, turning to he younger sis

ter.

"Why should I? What's the matter with my voice? As far as I know it's all right," was the flippant answer. Leaving Marianna to take home the mail, she joined Mr. Prior and Miss Benton as they walked back to the chapel. "Did you see the porpoises jumping this morning?" she asked. "Silvie and I were rowing over to the point. The tide was high, and how they did jump! So near us, too! I found a lot of . gold and silver shells for your mother, Miss Benton. She told me she thought them pretty. One can find so few along the home beach now, but they are as thick as mussels on Pachoug Point."

They turned into the rather dimly

lit chapel. Florilla, sitting down on a bench near the door, proceeded to untie the handkerchief into which she had gathered her treasures. Thin and transparent, in some cases resembling in form the shells of small round clams, they lay in her lap heaped in contrasting color. Such shells are used by the women of this vicinity in their fancy work. They are fastened to lamp mats and picture frames, or stuck in a foundation of plaster-of-Paris on vases and boxes. A more pretentious mode of ornamentation is to string them on seines, and suspend them for sash-curtains at windows, or for portieres. In the parlor now in the Bill home hung a piece of work of this sort, the work of the dead sister's fingers.

The effect of these draperies was not unpleasing, the shells being suspended along the twine in such a way as to show to the greatest advantage their beautiful coloring that shaded from the darkest grey-almost the black of oxidized silverto pure white, and again, through the gradations of gold to the pink of newly burnished copper.

"Look!" said Florilla, holding up a shell that she had been polishing with her finger. "See how iridescent it is. I told your mother I would show her how to fasten them on fish-net."

Miss Benton, passing up the aisle, seated herself at the melodeon. "Now what do you suppose are the schemes this time of that interesting young person?" she said to Mr. Prior, who was turning the leaves of a hymn book. "Last year her deep affection and unremitting attention to my guileless and unsuspecting parent were rewarded at

the end of the season. Mother was so sorry for the 'overworked child', as she designated her-I'd like to see anyone get much work out of Florrie Bill!-that to cheer her during the coming lonely winter she gave her her string of beautiful mummy beads that she had brought from Egypt. Last year it was cottage cheese, and in the Autumn, beach plums-for 'jell'. This year it seems it is to be gold and silver shells, and a string 'drape' for our best room'!

Which of the rooms would you call the best, Ned?

Shall we use the fish-net as a back

ground for the old blue china in the dining-room-Lafayette might not look out of place landing amidst such nautical surroundings! Or will it harmonize better with the Russian copper and Navajo blankets in the only other room down stairsbarring the kitchen. Do you know that I am beginning to suspect that we are lacking in the requisite number of partitions, according to Southcreek standards. We certainly have no place to correspond to the sanctuary of the gold shell drapery of the house of Bill. Maranna, they say, is very nice and all that. Do you know her well-what do you think of her?"

"I would rather not discuss Miss Bill, Louise."

on her nerves occasionally."

"And Florilla isn't much help, I fear. It is kind in your mother to take an interest in the child; her influence is sure to be uplifting. You ask about Marianna. Yes, I felt that I knew her well last year. She has a remarkably fine character. The home life of the family is beautiful. I wish you would call there some day. Will you?"

Louise did not answer, but sat looking down at the keys of the primitive instrument before her. Her left hand lay in her lap, but the fingers of her right hand were playing over and over a tune that sounded like a child's simple exercise. Suddenly she straightened herself from the rather drooping attitude and looked up at the young man, her face lit with a mischievous smile.

"Ned, there are mer-creatures out in the Sound. Did you know it? Mother discovered them, or rather their voices. It is only occasionally that one can hear them. All the conditions must be just right: the tide out, but coming in, preferably a storm brewing. One must sit in a rocking chair facing the sea, and there must be no land noises. Everything must be absolutely quiet around one-no conversation, nothing. As one rocks back and forth, ignoring the noise of the the noise of the water near shore and listening attentively for a sound far out beyond the waves, one will hear a distant murmur that sounds something like the song in a sea-shell when held to the ear, but more like a hoarse, monotonous chorus of low, bass voices. I suppose you don't believe me! I wish you could hear it once;

legato

One cannot get the gruff, hoarse cadence on any instrument, of course; but that is the air. 'Mother's Mermen's Melody'-from Connecticut's prosaic coast!"

She played the air again, improvising an harmonious accompaniment, and carrying it from one key to another. Ceasing rather abruptly to play and standing up, she turned towards Mr. Prior.

"I wonder why the Bill clan left the Congregational church. They say a Bill family has owned a pew there ever since the church was founded, and goodness knows how many years ago that was! Now, no one of that name is on the member

ship list of ye ancient meeting house."

"It was some awkward blunder made by a new minister several years ago, he-hush!" Florilla, passing up the aisle towards them, stooped and picked up a letter. "Here's part of your mail, Mr. Prior. Won't you feel grand when you are addressed as 'Reverend'!"

"Oh, the Bishop's letter, did I drop it?"

"Where do you think he will send you?" asked Louise.

"He says to some place in the Berkshires, and," he paused, a musing, far off look in his eyes, "perhaps it will be just as well-better."

Louise played the bars of a hymn. from the book opened before her, repeating the refrain before she spoke

again.

"Well, we will miss you, Ned. There is no doubt of that. What with no caddy capable of coaching, I shall not play in the next match. Edith Gaillard is coming, and I had begun to plan all sorts of festivities for Saturdays, hoping you could be induced to come down on an early train each week. You haven't seen my auto yet. Yesterday my progress was triumphal one awful nightmare of shying horses, scattering chickens, shrieking kids, barking curs, and insulting hayseeds. Next week, I thought, with Edith here, I would take you both to share my pleasant progress. Beware of clergymen, Florrie, embryo or otherwise; they are an unknown and uncertain quantity, as you see."

"Yes, and the strawberry festival, and the fair of the ladies' guild," chimed in Florrie. "The one last year was the best we ever had, all because you got so many from the beach to come. If you're not here this summer I know everything will be a fizzle. You remember how you, and Annabel, and Marianna, and I went to the 'Druid rocks' after ferns and wild flowers to trim up the hall?" Florrie appeared quite dejected.

"Yes, I remember, Florrie, quite well, very well indeed. That day in the woods was one to remember, and the "

"Stop your solemnity,you two," interrupted Louise, recovering her accustomed gayety. "Speed the parting, welcome the coming man, Florrie. I see in my mind's eye a grand and glorious youth, his specialty, fairs and festivals. He likewise knows divers and many ways of raising money, and can hypnotize

At half past eight o'clock in the morning, having breakfasted two hours before, and, in the meantime, having done their numerous household duties, the members of the Bill family were assembled in the commodious kitchen. Marianna had swept and dusted the entire first. floor, Maud and Minta had together made all the beds, Embargo had wiped the dishes which his mother. had washed, and had then beaten the stiff batter of a delicious cake for her, which even now Mrs. Bill had opened the oven door to examine. The spicy odor filled the kitchen, and the children sniffed the air with pleasurable anticipation. Mrs Bill broke a wisp from a broom and ran it into the loaf, announcing as she drew it out clean of any batter that the cake was done.

The outside door opened and Bland Allison Silver, or "Silvie", as he was called, came in. He had been to the big barn helping his father in the care of the animals. Not only the horses had to be groomed, but the yoke of big prize oxen received the same care. The latter, hitched to a hay cart, stood in the driveway, near the kitchen door, for Mr. Bill was going after a load of