But Dean and the rest should keep their opinions to themselves, confound them! The path from our house--the latter every Denboro native spoke of as the "Paine Place"-- wound along the edge of the bluff for perhaps three hundred yards, then turned sharply through the grove of scrub oaks and pitch pines and emerged on the Shore Lane.

The Shore Lane was not a public road, in the strictest sense of the term.

It was really a part of my land and, leading, as it did, from the Lower Road to the beach, was used as a public road merely because mother and I permitted it to be.

It had been so used, by sufferance of the former owner, for years, and when we came into possession of the property we did not interfere with the custom.

Land along the shore was worth precious little at that time and, besides, it was pleasant, rather than disagreeable, to hear the fish carts going out to the weirs, and the wagons coming to the beach for seaweed, or, filled with picnic parties, rattling down the Lane.