"Come, George, that's ridiculous. Learning by experience is proverbial," said Tom.
"I know!—but it's a delusion nevertheless. You sprain your ankle among these stones, for instance. Well—you won't put your foot in that particular hole again; but you will in another. That's the way you do, Tom. But to return—Miss Lothrop, what has experience done for you in the Isles of Shoals?"
"I have not had much yet."
"Does it pay to come here?"
"I think it does."
"How came anybody to think of coming here at first? that is what I should like to know. I never saw a more uncompromising bit of barrenness. Is there no desolation anywhere else, that men should come to the Isles of Shoals?"
"There was quite a large settlement here once," said Lois.
"Indeed! When?"
"Before the war of the revolution. There were hundreds of people; six hundred, somebody told me."
"What became of them?"