Isn't that splendid!" The sewing circles and the club and the noon and evening groups at the postoffice had two new subjects for verbal dissection during the next fortnight.

This was, in its way, a sort of special Providence, for this was the dull season, when there were no more wrecks alongshore or schooners aground on the bars, and the boarders and cottagers from the cities had not yet come to East Wellmouth.

Also the opening of the High Cliff House was getting to be a worn-out topic.

So Emily Howes, her appearance and behavior, and John Kendrick, HIS behavior and his astonishing recklessness in attempting to wrest a portion of the county law practice from Heman Daniels, were welcomed as dispensations and discussed with gusto.
Emily came through the gossip mill ground fine, but with surprisingly little chaff.

She was "pretty as a picture," all the males agreed upon that point.