Georgia, wild, fervid child, vowed she _loved_ the storms; and on tempestuous nights, when the wind howled, and raved, and shook the cottage, and roared through the pines, she would clap her hands in glee, and run down through it all toward the high rocks near the shore, and bend over them to feel the salt spray from the white-crested waves dash in her face. Then, coming back, she would scandalize Miss Jerusha, and terrify Fly nearly into fits, by protesting that the white caps of the waves were the bleached faces of drowned men holding a revel with the demons of the storm, and that whenever _she_ died, she was determined to be buried in the sand, for that no grave or coffin could ever hold her, and she knew she would have splendid times with the mermaids, and mermen, and old Father Neptune, and Mrs. Amphitrite, and the rest of them, in their coral grottoes down below. Now, Miss Jerusha was by no means strait-laced in spiritual matters herself, but such an ungodly belief as this would shock even her, and, with a deeply horrified look, she would lay down her knitting and begin: "Oh, my stars and garters! sich talk! Don't you know, you wicked child, that there ain't no sich place as that under the sun? There's nothing but mud, and fish-bones, and nasty sharks like what swallered Joner down there. No, you misfortunate little limb, folks allers goes to heaven or t'other place when they die, and it's my belief you'll take a trip downward, and sarve you right, too, you wicked little heathen you!" "See here, Miss Jerusha," said Georgia, curiously, "Emily Murray says there's another place--sort of half-way house, you know, with a hard name; let's see--pug--pug--no, _purgatory_, that's it--where people that ain't been horrid bad nor yet horrid good goes to, and after being scorched for awhile to take the badness out of them, they go up to heaven and settle down there for good. Is that so, Miss Jerusha?" "There!" said Miss Jerusha, dropping her knitting in consternation, "I allers said no good would come of her going to Burnfield and taking up with unbelievers and other wagrants. Oh, you wicked, drefful little gal! _No_; there ain't no sich place; in course there ain't. If you had read that pretty chapter I gave you in the Bible last Sunday instead of tying Betsey Periwinkle's tail to her hind leg and nearly setting of her crazy, you wouldn't be such a benighted little heathen as you are." "Well, I didn't like it--there! All about two ugly great bears eating a lot of children for calling somebody names. I don't like things like that. There ain't no fun in reading about them, and I'd a heap sooner read Robinson Crusoe; _he_ was a nice old man, I know he was. And when I grow up to be a big woman, I'm going to find out his island and live there myself--you see if I don't." Miss Jerusha gave a contemptuous snort.