“There is no fresh air here,” she objected.  “It is a compound of oxygen, nitrogen and fish, mostly very ripe fish.  One has to breathe cod, and eat it, and quintals are the only subjects of conversation.  Codfish of assorted sizes flop up in one’s dreams.  Last night one of them, about the length of a whale, apparently mistook me for a squid, or some such horrid thing, and was in the very act of swallowing me when I awoke.  I’m afraid, Daddy dear, that the fresh air of Sweetapple Cove is a dreadful fiction.  But it must be lovely outside.”

She was looking through the door, which stood widely opened, towards the places where the long smooth rollers broke upon the rocks, and beyond them at brown sails and screaming birds darting about in quest of prey.

“You are hungering for a breath of the sea, Miss Jelliffe,” I told her.  “Sammy and Frenchy are waiting for me to go to Will’s Island again.  With this wind it will be only a matter of three or four hours there and back.  Could you stand a trip in a fishing boat?”

“Just the thing for her.  No danger, is there, Doctor?” asked Mr. Jelliffe.

“Not on a day like this,” I replied.  Miss Jelliffe made a few further objections, which were quickly overruled.  Finally she gave Susie all sorts of directions, kissed her father affectionately, and was ready to go.

“We’ll be back soon, Daddy.  You are a dear to be always thinking about me.  I know I am very mean to leave you.”

“The young lady’ll be well took care of, sir,” declared Captain Sammy, who had come in to say that the boat was ready.

So we went down to the cove where Frenchy, already apprised that such a distinguished passenger was coming, was feverishly scrubbing the craft and soaking the footboards, endeavoring, with scant success, to remove all traces of fish and bait.

“It’s dreadful, isn’t it?” said Miss Jelliffe as we passed by the fishhouses.  “I know that when I get back home I shall never eat another fish-cake.  And just look at the awful swarms of flies and blue-bottles.  And the smell of it all!  It is all undoubtedly picturesque, but it is unspeakably smelly.”

The men were busily working, and girls and boys of all sizes, and one heard the sound of sharp knives ripping the fish, and the whirring of grindstones, and the flopping of offal in the water.  These people were clad in ancient oilskins, stiff and evil with blood and slime, but they lifted gruesome hands to their forelocks as Miss Jelliffe went by and she did her best to smile in answer.

“Couldn’t they be taught to be a little cleaner?” she asked me.  “Isn’t it awfully unhealthy for them?”