“I think you will find her more easy to entertain than Cousin Mehitabel.”

Then, seeing that Harrie answered absently, and how exhausted she looked, he expressed his sorrow that she should have worked so long over the shirts, and kissed her as he spoke; while Harrie cried a little, and felt as if she would cut them all over again for that.

The next day Miss Dallas and Mrs. Sharpe sat sewing together; Harrie cramping her shoulders and blackening her hands over a patch on Rocko’s rough little trousers; Pauline playing idly with purple and orange wools,—­her fingers were white, and she sank with grace into the warm colors of the arm-chair; the door was opened into the hall, and Dr. Sharpe passed by, glancing in as he passed.

“Your husband is a very intelligent man, Harrie,” observed Miss Dallas, studying her lavenders and lemons thoughtfully.  “I was much interested in what he said about pre-Adamic man, last evening.”

“Yes,” said Harrie, “he knows a great deal.  I always thought so.”  The little trousers slipped from her black fingers by and by, and her eyes wandered out of the window absently.

She did not know anything about pre-Adamic man.

In the afternoon they walked down the beach together,—­the Doctor, his wife, and their guest,—­accompanied by as few children as circumstances would admit of.  Pauline was stately in a beach-dress of bright browns, which shaded softly into one another; it was one of Miss Dallas’s peculiarities, that she never wore more than one color, or two, at the same time.  Harrie, as it chanced, wore over her purple dress (Rocko had tipped over two ink-bottles and a vinegar-cruet on the sack which should have matched it) a dull gray shawl; her bonnet was blue,—­it had been a present from Myron’s sister, and she had no other way than to wear it.  Miss Dallas bounded with pretty feet from rock to rock.  Rocko hung heavily to his mother’s fingers; she had no gloves, the child would have spoiled them; her dress dragged in the sand,—­she could not afford two skirts, and one must be long,—­and between Rocko and the wind she held it up awkwardly.

Dr. Sharpe seldom noticed a woman’s dress; he could not have told now whether his wife’s shawl was sky-blue or pea-green; he knew nothing about the ink-spots; he had never heard of the unfortunate blue bonnet, or the mysteries of short and long skirts.  He might have gone to walk with her a dozen times and thought her very pretty and “proper” in her appearance.  Now, without the vaguest idea what was the trouble, he understood that something was wrong.  A woman would have said, Mrs. Sharpe looks dowdy and old-fashioned; he only considered that Miss Dallas had a pleasant air, like a soft brown picture with crimson lights let in, and that it was an air which his wife lacked.  So, when Rocko dragged heavily and more heavily at his mother’s skirts, and the Doctor and Pauline wandered off to climb the cliffs, Harrie did not seek to follow or