“Oh, Hamilton, and good Mrs. Foster must have cooked it herself!”

“No,” said Ham, thoughtfully; “our Dabney went home with Ford and Annie.  I can’t stay but a minute, but I think we’d better go right over.”

Go they did, while the charitable neighbors whom Ham had stirred up concerning the wreck attended to the completion of the cargo of the “Swallow.”  There would be more than one good boat ready to accompany her back across the bay, laden with comforts of all sorts.

Even old Jock, the village tavern-keeper, not by any means the best man in the world, had come waddling down to the landing with a demijohn of “old apple brandy,” and his gift had been kindly accepted by the special advice of the village physician.

“That sort of thing has made plenty of ship-wrecks around here,” remarked the man of medicine; “and the people on the bar have swallowed so much salt-water, the apple-jack can’t hurt ’em.”

May be, the doctor was wrong about it, but the demijohn went over to the wreck in the “Swallow.”

Mrs. Foster’s dining-room was not a large one.  There were no large rooms in that house.  Nevertheless, the entire party managed to gather around the table,—­all except Dab and Ford.

“Dab is head cook and I’m head waiter,” had been Ford’s explanation, “and we can’t have any women folk a-bothering about our kitchen.  Frank and the boys are company.”

Certainly the cook had no cause to be ashamed of his work.  The coffee was excellent.  The fish were done to a turn.  The oysters, roasted, broiled or stewed, and likewise the clams, were all that could have been asked for.  Bread there was in abundance, and everything was going finely till Mrs. Kinzer asked her son, as his fire-red face showed itself at the kitchen door: 

“Dabney, you’ve not sent in your vegetables; we’re waiting for them.”

Dab’s face grew still redder, and he came very near dropping a plate he had in his hand.

“Vegetables?  Oh yes.  Well, Ford, we might as well send them in now.  I’ve got them all ready.”

Annie opened her eyes and looked hard at her brother, for she knew very well that not so much as a potato had been thought of in their preparations.  Ford himself looked a little queer, but he marched out, white apron and all.  A minute or so later, the two boys came in again, each bearing aloft a huge platter.

One of these was solemnly deposited at each end of the table.

“Vegetables?”

“Why, they’re lobsters!”

“Oh, Ford, how could you?”

The last exclamation came from Annie Foster as she clapped her hands over her face.  Bright red were those lobsters, and fine-looking fellows, every one of them, in spite of Mrs. Lee’s poor opinion; but they were a little too well dressed, even for a dinner-party.  Their thick shoulders were adorned with collars of the daintiest material and finish, while every ungainly “flipper” wore a “cuff” which had been manufactured for very different uses.  Plenty of cuffs and collars, and queer enough the lobsters looked in them.  All the queerer because every item of lace and linen was variegated with huge black spots and blotches, as if some one had begun to wash it in ink.