These two men were intolerable: and yet they only translated into meaner terms the opinion which everyone in this strange country seemed to have formed of her. She thought of the young sailor, of Nuncey, of Mr. Benny. All these were simple souls, and patently willing to believe the best of a fellow-creature; yet each in a different way had treated her with suspicion, as though she were here to seek her own interests, and with a selfish disregard of others'. The young sailor had openly and hotly accused her of it. Nuncey and her father, though kind, and even delicately eager to make her welcome, as clearly held some disapproval in reserve--were puzzled somehow to account for her. And she was guiltless. She had come in response to a plain invitation, thinking only of good work to be done. No; what she found intolerable was not these two men, but the whole situation. She turned with a start. Something had flown in through the open midmost window, and fallen with a thud on the floor a few yards from her feet. She stepped across and stooped to examine it. It was the upper half of a tattered and somewhat grimy rag doll. To account for this apparition we must cross the garden, to the summer-house, where Myra and Clem had hidden themselves away from the heat with a book, and, for the twentieth time perhaps, were lost in the adventures of Jack the Tinker and the Giant Blunderbuss. As a rule Myra would read a portion of the story, and the pair then fell to acting it over together. In this way Clem had slain, in the course of his young life, many scores of giants, wizards, dragons, and other enemies of mankind, his sister the while keeping watch over his blindness, and calling to him when and where to deliver the deadly stroke. But to-day the heat disinclined them for these dramatic exertions, and they sat quiet, even on reaching the point at which Jack the Tinker, his friend Tom, the good-natured giant, and Tom's children, young Tom and Jane, fare forth with slings for their famous hunting. "'They soon knocked down as many kids, hares, and rabbits as they desired. They caught some colts, placed the children on two of them and the game on the others, and home they went.'" Myra glanced up at Clem, for this was a passage which ever called to him like a trumpet. But to-day Clem spread out both hands, protesting. "'On their return, whilst waiting for supper, Jack wandered around the castle, and was struck by seeing a window which he had not before observed. Jack was resolved to discover the room to which this window belonged; so he very carefully noticed its position and then threw his hammer in through it, that he might be certain of the spot when he found his tool inside the castle. The next day, after dinner.'"-- "Wait a moment, Clem dear!" "Oh, but we _must!_" Clem had jumped to his feet. "It's too dreadfully hot. Very well, then; but wait for the end.