"Where is Belle O'Neill?"
"I told 'er 't she'd got me to set the trap, 'nd she orter, 't least, keep the crows off'n the clams; but she went over to Lunette's and borrowed the book, 'n' she's settin' there in the graves, where Miss Pray can't see her, readin' it."
I sighed to think how early, among his other trials, Wesley was learning the frailties of the lovable sex.
"I will go up and keep the crows off of the clams for you, Wesley."
"I think," said Wesley innocently, his face expressing a kindlier gratitude than his words conveyed, "'t you could scare 'em off first-rate!"
While I reclined on the green bank, not far from the clams, a solemn and fearful reprehension to the crows, I heard Belle O'Neill's voice reading to herself aloud among the graves. The Basins possessed but one secular volume, which they were accustomed to lend from house to house, and which was designated without confusion as "the book."
Belle O'Neill, peeping out from the graves, saw me, and came forward, blushing timidly. Wesley rose from the clam flats and hissed at her for her treachery, but she was very fair, and I received her kindly.
"Major Henry," said she, "will you show me what this means, please?"
She sat down close to me—for nobody minded me—and put her finger on the place.
Now "the book," though jointly purchased by the Basins from a travelling salesman, as a highly illuminated volume, promising much of a lively nature, had turned out to be to an altogether unexpected degree serious and didactic.