It was _not_ exactly to Dugald Allan's liking to have a "young piece" around. He had planned some difficult and steady work for the summer. And he had an unreasonable aversion to fifteen-year-olds, at least the kind like his young cousin and her friends, which was the only kind he really knew. But he was touched by Aunt Achsa's delight in finding "flesh-and-blood" kin; he did not like to dampen her pleasure. He could work somewhere else, in one of the corners of the breakwall or among the dunes. He smilingly assured her that a "young piece" around would add tremendously to his summer. "I dunno if I can write her a nice enough letter, my hand shakes so, and I ain't much of a head at spelling. Pa never set anything by books himself and Asabel's and my schoolin' sort o' depended on the elements." Dugald Allan sensed that Achsa did not want this little unknown cousin, miles away, to know of her lack of "schoolin'." "Bless you, I'll write and I'll write just as though it came from you." "Don't know as there's a scrap of writin' paper in this house." "My best is none too good," promised young Allan promptly, delighting in the growing pleasure in the wrinkled face. But one more doubt assailed Achsa Green. Lavender. "D'you think I ought to tell first hand--about Lavender?" Early in his acquaintance with Aunt Achsa and Sunset Lane Dugald had come to know how it hurt Aunt Achsa to speak of Lavender as "being different." At first, with courteous consideration he had avoided the truth--then as the summers passed he himself had grown fond enough of the boy to forget the crooked body. He hesitated a moment before he answered, then he spoke gently: "No, Aunt Achsa. That is not necessary. And anyway--it's only the outer shell of him that is different, his soul is fine and straight and manly." At this Achsa's eyes caressed him; he put so easily into words what she tried so bravely to remember. And thus it had come about that Dugald Allan wrote on his best stationery (which he kept for his letters to his mother) to Sidney Ellis Romley, as though, per promise, it was Cousin Achsa, herself. He had had to write several letters before one quite suited both him and Achsa. The letter despatched, to his surprise he shared with Aunt Achsa considerable interest in its outcome. It would certainly knock the summer flat, but Aunt Achsa's delighted anticipation was rare. He helped her to prepare the "spare" room off the parlor and to remove anything that might remind its young occupant of that tragic passing of Lavender's mother "by box." He abetted her safeguarding the various mementoes of the days when the _Betsy King_ sailed into the harbor from foreign shores. "No sense leavin' things 'round waitin' to be knocked off long's they lived through them cats. You can't tell what fifteen's goin' to be!" "No--" groaned Allan inwardly, "You certainly can not."