"Why should you imagine I looked twice at any island maid?" answered Winn.
"Oh, you were bound to," asserted Ethel, laughing. "You wouldn't be the delightful man you are unless you did, so tell me all about her. Did she wear her flaxen hair in a braid and ask from beneath a sunbonnet, 'What are the wild waves saying?' while she stood barefoot beside you on the beach?"
"Oh, yes, and chewed spruce gum at the same time," he responded, also laughing.
"Even when you kissed her?" queried Ethel. "It must have lent a delightfully aromatic flavor."
Winn made no answer to this pointed sally. Instead he stroked his moustache musingly, while his thoughts flew back to Rockhaven and Mona.
Ethel eyed him keenly.
"Quit mooning," she said at last, "and come back to Erin. I do not expect you to admit you kissed this fair fisher maid. It wouldn't be gallant. But you can at least describe her. Is she dark or fair?"
"I haven't the least idea," he said, "she was so sweet and charming; her eyes might have been sea-green for all I can tell."
"You evade fairly well," rejoined his tormentor, "but not over well. You still need practice. Now tell me about this old fellow Jack described as a 'barnacled curiosity.'"
"Oh, Jess Hutton," replied Winn, relieved; "he is a curiosity, and of the salt of the earth. If there was any one I fell in love with on the island, it was he."