[Pg 9]

The young fellow bowed to the girl who acknowledged the greeting.

"What is the name of those beautiful creatures?" she asked with her usual gentle simplicity of manner.

"These? Oh, these are mackerel."

"Jewels of the deep, surely," she said.

"They are rather dressy," returned Philip.

Diana bathed him in the light of her serene brown gaze.

"I am so ignorant of the names of the denizens of the sea," she said. "I come from Philadelphia."

Philip returned her look with dancing stars in his eyes. "I'd have said Boston if you only wore eyeglasses."

"Oh, that is the humorous tradition, is it not?" she returned.

"Now, don't you drip 'em in here," said Miss Burridge, as the young fellow started to enter the kitchen door. "If you're really goin' to be clever and clean 'em, I'll give you the knife and everything right outdoors."

"Then I think I would better withdraw," said Diana hastily. "I cannot bear to see the mutilation of such a rich specimen of Nature's[Pg 10] handiwork; but, oh, Mr. Barrison, not without one word concerning the heavenly song that floated across the field as you came. Miss Burridge calls you Phil;—'Philomel with melody!' I should say. Au revoir. I will go down among the pebbles for a while."

[Pg 10]

She vanished, and Philip regarded Miss Burridge, who returned his gaze.

"Good night!" he said at last.

"Sh! Sh!" warned Miss Priscilla, and tiptoed across the kitchen. When she had looked from a window and seen her boarder's sweater and tam proceeding among the grassy hummocks toward the sea, she returned, bringing out the materials for Philip's operations on the fish.

"I'll bring a rhetoric instead of finny denizens of the deep, the next time I come," he continued, settling to his job.

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