Four stalwart boys from fourteen to eighteen worked over the nets, mending them; around the back door there were four or five more, and sitting in the sunlight in a low rocking-chair was an old woman as picturesque as some ancient sibyl.
Sandy seemed to greet them as old acquaintances, so Kit called good-morning in good old Yankee fashion.

The boys eyed her, somewhat askance, and all of the children scurried like a flock of startled chickens as she came up the boardwalk to the kitchen door, but the old grandmother kept serenely on paring potatoes, calm-eyed and unembarrassed.
"How do you do ?" said Kit, smilingly.

"I'm Dean Peabody's grandniece.

I just came west yesterday, and Sandy brought me here this morning.

I didn't know where he was going, but he seemed to know the way." The old woman's brown eyes followed the movement of the dog.
"He ver' fine, that dog," she said, deliberately.