"I don't know," said Lois, in the dreamy tone of rapt enjoyment. "I don't know yet. Plenty of broken shells."
"Broken shells!" ejaculated the other. "Are you collecting broken shells?"
"Look," said Lois, coming to her and displaying her palm full of sea treasures. "See the colours of those bits of shell—that's a bit of a mussel; and that is a piece of a snail shell, I think; and aren't those little stones lovely?"
"That is because they are wet!" said the other in disgust. "They will be nothing when they are dry."
Lois laughed and went back to her search; and Miss Julia waited awhile with impatience for some change in the programme.
"Do you enjoy this, Miss Lothrop?"
"Very much! More than I can in any way tell you!" cried Lois, stopping and turning to look at her questioner. Her face answered for her; it was all flushed and bright with delight and the spirit of discovery; a pretty creature indeed she looked as she stood there on the wet gravel of the cove; but her face lost brightness for a moment, as Lois discerned Tom's head above the herbs and grasses that bordered the bank above the cove. Julia saw the change, and then the cause of it.
"Tom!" said she, "what brought you here?"
"What brought you, I suppose," said Mr. Tom, springing down the bank. "Miss Lothrop, what can you be doing?" Passing his sister he went to the other girl's side. And now there were two searching and peering into the mud and gravel which the tide had left wet and bare; and Miss Caruthers, sitting on a rock a little above them, looked on; much marvelling at the follies men will be guilty of when a pretty face draws them on.
"Tom—Tom!—what do you expect to find?" she cried after awhile. But Tom was too busy to heed her. And then appeared Mr. Lenox upon the scene.