the scorching August sun, the Atlantic seemed to purr like a
huge, amiable lion cub.

It was not the amiabilities of nature, however, in which Dorothea
found inspiration. A harp of a single string, she sang as that
minstrel might who was implored to make love alone his theme.

Given an imaginative young person of eleven, who, when not
abandoning herself utterly to athletics, has secret and continual
access to the brand of literature peculiar to the "Seaside
Library," and the result is obvious. Dorothea's mother read
recipes; her father was addicted to the daily papers. It was only
in her grandmother that Dorothea found a literary taste she
approved. On that cozy person's bookshelves one could always find
what happened to Goldie or what the exquisite Irish heroine said
to the earl before she eloped with the captain.

In this knowledge Dorothea's parents had no ambition that their
daughter should excel. In fact, an uncompromising edict on the
subject had been given forth more than once to a sullen and
rebellious sinner. But how should the most suspicious parent,
when his daughter sits in his presence apparently engrossed in a
book entitled "The Girlhood of Famous Women," guess that
carefully concealed in its interior is a smaller volume bearing
the title "Muriel's Mistake, or, For Another's Sin?"

Having acquired knowledge, the true student seeks to demonstrate.
Dorothea had promptly and intentionally fallen in love with the
son of her next-door neighbor. Amiel--fresh from his first year
in college-- was a tall, broad-shouldered youth, with kindly