"Do you want him?"
"I want him to tell me the merits of each, so you'd better come along now. You can stay to dinner. There will be quantities of excellent chowder, warmed over baked beans, with whatever vegetables we can scrape together. I think there is pie for dessert. Can you stand the combination?"
"It sounds appetizing, especially the chowder. I see Ira's wagon going our way; I'll send word to my sister not to expect me." He ran after the wagon, which was turning into the cove road, and gave his message.
"Do you like cranberries?" asked Gwen. "I think we shall have some of them, too. I adore them. If you gather them when they are just turning pink, not red, they make much better sauce than when they are fully ripe. If you will not tell anyone I'll show you where they grow." She led the way across the pasture to a marshy spot a short distance from the beaten path. Lifting the graceful tendrils of the pretty vines, she showed, buried in soft gray-green moss, the tiny globes of waxy pink. "This is my own special find," she said. "I have already gathered two quarts, and to-morrow I can get more. I am glad there is a to-morrow," she added. "Now come and show me the sketches. I hope there are some moonlit waves. Isn't it wonderful to see the golden gates open and that glittering pathway unroll upon the sea? One feels as if it led up—up to some enchanted palace. I can almost persuade myself into starting across the shiny road to fairy land. Then those little dancing flecks, 'patines of bright gold,' are like water-fairies luring one on to where the glittering path leads. I can scarce resist them."
"Don't follow them, please."
"I won't, I promise you. Are there any moonlights among your sketches?"
"Several. I have tried to express the effect very often, but I am afraid I have made many failures."
"Perhaps I can tell whether you have or not."
The sketches occupied the time till the dinner hour, after which meal Kenneth took his leave, but not before Miss Fuller arrived. The door had hardly closed after the young man when Ethel grasped Gwen's hand. "Congratulate me," she cried, "I'm engaged."
"Really?" Gwen looked pleased. "Of course it is Mr. Mitchell, and that accounts for his giving up Bar Harbor."