“Never in the world. I’m sorry, but--” “Thanks. I thought so,” she interrupted. “I told him, but he doesn’t seem to care. What will become--” Her smile was friendly but sad. “I’m breaking orders: the one thing he won’t let me do is to talk to strangers.” “Are we?” said Miles, more gloomily. “You know we are,” she answered, looking down. “In one way, no. If that thing had passed over us, out there--” The gray cardigan did not hide a passing shiver. For a time her bright head remained drooping. “No, we’re not. I’ll ask you. Do you know a man named Florio?” “Do I?” he cried. “He lives with us, down there!” “What is he?” she asked eagerly. “What does he do?” “Nothing,” answered Miles, with a puzzled scowl. “I--I don’t know.” “He and my father seem,” she began, then paused. “Has he anything to do with fish--with herring?” “Except to eat them!” Laughing at her incongruous picture of Tony, Miles suddenly felt a new and curious pang. “Do you like him?” She would not look up. “I--I hate him!” Her answer trembled with vehemence. “Row, please. Quick, I must get home!” He gave way once more, unaccountably glad. The bow, lifting, grated in sludgy sand. Neither spoke until he had dragged the magician’s punt well up the beach. Though standing nearly shoulder-high beside him, she had grown, as if at the touch of land, magically smaller; yet her presence, her influence, freed from the confines of the boat and the mist, not only stood more remote but reared more alarming. Their adventure, which had seemed limitless, now poignantly ended. “I hope,” he began, “I hope--” He longed vaguely to offer help, but against what? And why did she still look down, as though afraid or angry? “What ye doin’ down there?” growled a thick, slurring voice. “Good-f’r-nothin’, traipsin’--told ye--” The bank and upper shore formed a layer of solid reality, below the brooding unreality of the fog. The little house, gray and raggedly patched, stood close at hand, against the white shafts of birches. In the open door stood Abram, swaying blindly. “Come ’ere!” he grumbled. “Come ’ere to me! I’ll learn ye--” He brandished an uncertain fist, lurched a step forward, and stumbled. The rising bank hid his fall. Without looking back, the girl went slowly up the beach. [Illustration] CHAPTER V THE HIGH WOODS “Signs ain’t no great, I never ’lowed,” said Ella thoughtfully. Sweeping her knife in a neat semicircle, she pared the dough round the edge of a tin plate. The sweet, steamy breath of apple pies filled the kitchen, consorting genially with the soft, high sunshine reflected upward from snow-fields without. “No more ducks’ breast-bon’s for me! November, and see there!” She pointed at the frosty window-panes. “Open winter! What’s a shut? And for cold, why, ’fore breakfast, the what’s-name’s ’way down below the other thing.”