"Will we be going on Central Street?" she asked.

"No reason for turning down there," he replied, forgetful of the
gingerbread shop with the shaky little bell inside the door, the buttered
gingerbread on the upper shelf for three cents and that without on the
lower for two. She gathered her hopes now about Webb's Drugstore, where
her grandfather sometimes stopped for a talk, and bought her rock candy,
Gibraltars or blackjacks. It was too hot for blackjacks, she decided,
and, with opportunity, would choose the cooling peppermint flavor of the
Gibraltars.

The elms on Essex Street were far enough in leaf to cast a flickering
shade in the faintly salt air drifting from the sea; and they progressed
so slowly that Laurel was able to study the contents of most of the store
windows they passed. Some held crewels and crimped white cakes of wax,
gayly colored reticule beads with a wooden spoon for a penny measure, and
"strawberry" emery balls. There was a West India store and a place where
they sold oil and candles, another had charts for mariners; while across
the way stood the East India Marine Hall.

Here her grandfather hesitated, and for a moment it seemed as if he would
go over and join the masters always to be found about the Museum. But in
the end he continued beyond the Essex House with its iron bow and lamp
over the entrance, past Cheapside to Webb's Drugstore, where he purchased
a bag of Peristaltic lozenges, and--after pretending to start away as if
nothing more were to be secured there--the Gibraltars.

They were returning, in the general direction of Derby Wharf, when Jeremy
Ammidon met a companion of past days at sea, and stopped for the
inevitable conversational exchange. The latter, who had such a great