"Ask me something easier, gentlemen." A TREASURE OF THE GALLEON.
Her father's house was nearly a mile from the sea, but the breath of it was always strong at the windows and doors in the early morning, and when there were heavy "southwesters" blowing in the winter, the wind brought the sharp sting of sand to her cheek, and the rain an odd taste of salt to her lips.

On this particular December afternoon, however, as she stood in the doorway, it seemed to be singularly calm; the southwest trades blew but faintly, and scarcely broke the crests of the long Pacific swell that lazily rose and fell on the beach, which only a slanting copse of scrub-oak and willow hid from the cottage.
Nevertheless, she knew this league-long strip of shining sand much better, it is to be feared, than the scanty flower-garden, arid and stunted by its contiguity.

It had been her playground when she first came there, a motherless girl of twelve, and she had helped her father gather its scattered driftwood--as the fortunes of the Millers were not above accepting these occasional offerings of their lordly neighbor.
"I wouldn't go far to-day, Jenny," said her father, as the girl stepped from the threshold.

"I don't trust the weather at this season; and besides you had better be looking over your wardrobe for the Christmas Eve party at Sol.

Catlin's." "Why, father, you don't intend to go to that man's ?" said the girl, looking up with a troubled face.
"Lawyer Miller," as he was called by his few neighbors, looked slightly embarrassed.