Annette had wandered farther in the shallow water than the rest. Suddenly she stumbled against a stone, the torch dropped and spluttered at her feet. With a little helpless cry she looked at the stretch of unfamiliar beach and water to find herself all alone. 

 "Pardon me, mademoiselle," said a voice at her elbow; "you are in distress?" 

 It was her fisherman, and with a scarce conscious sigh of relief, Annette put her hand into the outstretched one at her side. 

 "I was looking for soft shells," she explained, "and lost the crowd, and now my torch is out." 

 "Where is the crowd?"  There was some amusement in the tone, and Annette glanced up quickly, prepared to be thoroughly indignant at this fisherman who dared make fun at her; but there was such a kindly look about his mouth that she was reassured and said meekly,— 

 "At Henderson's Point." 

 "You have wandered a half-mile away," he mused, "and have nothing to show for your pains but very wet skirts. If mademoiselle will permit me, I will take her to her friends, but allow me to suggest that mademoiselle will leave the water and walk on the sands." 

 "But I am barefoot," wailed Annette, "and I am afraid of the fiddlers." 

 Fiddler crabs, you know, aren't pleasant things to be dangling around one's bare feet, and they are more numerous than sand fleas down at Henderson's Point. 

 "True," assented the fisherman; "then we shall have to wade back." 

 The fishing was over when they rounded the point and came in sight of the cheery bonfire with its Rembrandt-like group, and the air was savoury with the smell of frying fish and crabs. The fisherman was not to be tempted by appeals to stay, but smilingly disappeared down the sands, the red glare of his torch making a glowing track in the water. 

 "Ah, Mees Annette," whispered Natalie, between mouthfuls of a rich croaker, "you have found a beau in the water." 

 "And the fisherman of the Pass, too," laughed her cousin Ida. 

 Annette tossed her head, for Philip had growled audibly. 

 "Do you know, Philip," cried Annette a few days after, rudely shaking him from his siesta on the gallery,—"do 

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