"Where is the harbor, papa?" asked little Grace.
"All around us, my child; we are in it."
"Are we?" she asked, "I think it looks just like the sea; what's the matter with it, Aunt Zoe?"
"Nothing, only it's too quiet; the great waves don't come rolling in and breaking along the shore. I heard your father say so; it's here they have the still bathing."
"Oh, yes, and papa is going to teach us to swim!" exclaimed Lulu; "I'm so glad, for I like to learn how to do everything."
"That's right," her father said, with an approving smile; "learn all you can, for 'knowledge is power.'"
They landed, the gentlemen presently secured a sufficient number of hacks to comfortably accommodate the entire party, and after a cursory view of the town, in a drive through several of its more important streets, they started on the road to 'Sconset.
They found it, though a lonely, by no means an unpleasant, drive—a road marked out only by rows of parallel ruts across wild moorlands, where the ground was level or slightly rolling, with now and then some gentle elevation, or a far-off glimpse of harbor or sea, or a lonely farmhouse. The wastes were treeless, save for the presence of a few stunted jack-pines; but these gave out a sweet scent, mingling pleasantly with the smell of the salt-sea air; and there were wild roses and other flowering shrubs, thistles and tiger-lilies and other wild flowers, beautiful enough to tempt our travellers to alight occasionally to gather them.
'Sconset was reached at length, three adjacent cottages found ready and waiting for their occupancy, and they took possession.
The cottages stood on a high bluff overlooking miles of sea, between which and the foot of the cliff stretched a low sandy beach a hundred yards or more in width, and gained by flights of wooden stairs.