“Came in with the ice-floe,” smiled Marian.
“Are—are you a captive?” asked Lucile suddenly. “And—and do they make you live with them?”
“Captive? Live with whom?” the girl’s eyes were big with wonder.
“The Negontisks.”
“The what?”
“The Negontisks.”
“Why, no, child. Of what are you dreaming? I never saw a Negontisk, let alone living with them. Heard of them though. Please explain.”
She bounced down into one of the overstuffed chairs with a little sigh of “Oh! What delicious comfort! You don’t know how strange it is to live like an Eskimo. It’s trying at times, too.”
It took a great deal of explaining for Lucile to make the reasons for her questions clear to the stranger. In the meantime, Florence had an opportunity to study their visitor.
“Very small, not weighing over ninety pounds, very vivacious, decidedly American and considerably older than we are,” was her final analysis.