He turned and looked into her eyes as he spoke, the innocent blue eyes that returned his gaze fully. Her pretty lips parted in her interest. "That was very good of you," she said sincerely. "I would like to go to every interesting place, so I am sure I should have echoed your wish. Where was it? At the seashore?" "A part of the time,—yes." "I wonder if I shall ever go East," exclaimed the girl with a sigh. "New York, Boston, Philadelphia, I should like them to be something beside names to me,—but what an idea!" She broke off with a short laugh. Her thoughts had indeed, like unruly steeds, kicked over the traces by which they had been harnessed to carry her by a safe road out of a perplexing labyrinth. "Not an absurd idea at all," said her companion quietly. "Our lake looks very like the ocean, I suppose," she continued, after an involuntary sigh. "Not very much. I don’t say it is not as beautiful," replied Mr. Van Tassel loyally, "but the electric blues and translucent greens of Lake Michigan have little in common with the deep, strong indigo, or bottle-green, of old Ocean. There is as much variance in their complexions as in their voices; as much difference between the sweep of the fresh-water surf and the boom of the ocean’s tide, as between the tones of a tenor and a bass voice." "But, Mr. Van Tassel, think of the lake storms!" returned Clover, her Chicago spirit piqued. "I’ve stood on the lake shore many a time when I could lean my full weight against the wind and be supported; and how does the boom of the breakers, hammering the piers on those nights, sound at your house?" Mr. Van Tassel smiled. "Well," he answered, "we will say like a _tenore robusto_ in full force. But there again comes in the difference in disposition. When Lake Michigan becomes angry, it flies into a white rage in a few minutes, and as soon as the spell is over calms down into comparative placidity; while the ocean, slow to wrath, relaxes but gradually, storming on with splendid fury under a dazzling sun." "A difference greatly in favor of the lake, I should say," returned Clover. "Ah, but think of the terrors of Michigan’s caprices. Smiling, even seeming to dream in a happy reverie one minute, rocking its little sailboats softly on its breast like a gentle mother, all at once with appalling suddenness it flies into a passion, and while the fit is on works havoc that inflicts long years of misery, though the very next hour may find it dimpling again in gay carelessness of calamity. Not so with the ocean. The sailor relies on its steady winds, and the honest signs it hangs in the heavens for all to read, giving fair warning of approaching danger." "Why, Mr. Van Tassel! As if you didn’t know that our sky hangs out signs too, only, as Jack says, one must be brought up right on the lake to understand them. I had no idea you were such a poet, and so disloyal."