"There can't, if they're little islands out at sea. Most folks wouldn't like that. Do you want to go, Lois?"
"I would like it, very much. I just want to see what they are like, grandmother. I never did see the sea yet."
"You saw it yesterday, when we went for clams," said Charity scornfully.
"That? O no. That's not the sea, Charity."
"Well, it's mighty near it."
It seemed to be agreed at last that Lois should accept her cousin's invitation; and she made her preparations. She made them with great delight. Pleasant as the home-life was, it was quite favourable to the growth of an appetite for change and variety; and the appetite in Lois was healthy and strong. The sea and the islands, and, on the other hand, an intermission of gardening and fruit-picking; Shampuashuh people lost sight of for a time, and new, new, strange forms of humanity and ways of human life; the prospect was happy. And a happy girl was Lois, when one evening in the early part of August she joined Mrs. Wishart in the night train to Boston. That lady met her at the door of the drawing-room car, and led her to the little compartment where they were screened off from the rest of the world.
"I am so glad to have you!" was her salutation. "Dear me, how well you look, child! What have you been doing to yourself?"
"Getting brown in the sun, picking berries."
"You are not brown a bit. You are as fair as—whatever shall I compare you to? Roses are common."
"Nothing better than roses, though," said Lois.