airs, now? You have no doll-houses, my infants, no fine toys that move
by the machine-work within, no bicycles, no anything for play; what,
then, does amuse you all the day's length in this most sleepy town?"

The children stared at her with round, puzzled eyes.

What did they find to amuse them? With the cliffs, and the sand, and
sea, and the nice little lobster and clam basins they knew about; and
the countless shells for dishes, and fish-scales for jewellery, and kelp
for carpets, and dulse and feathery sea-fern for decorations.

"Dear me!" cried Molly, "there's things enough; all we want is
_time_. Here I've wasted a whole morning darning stockings and
talking to you!"

The outburst that followed this _naive_ confession brought uneasy
Sara to her sister's side; and with a hand on one of those restless,
twitching little shoulders, she managed to keep her respectably quiet
through the rest of the call.

As the guests went down the village street it was funny to hear their
comments.

"It ees a most fine collection, all varieties and classified most
orderly," observed the professor, intent on the minerals.

"Such specimens! And impossible to keep in order!" broke out the young
man, meaning something entirely different. "But the oldest is a rare
one, and"--