kerchief over her head, had her sleeves rolled up, and was so intent on her work that she merely nodded and smiled as the new-comers greeted her with varying degrees of courtesy.
"She looks like a handsome gypsy, with her dark face and that red thing in the firelight. I wish I could paint her," said Miss Scott, who was very young at heart in spite of her fifty years and gray head.
"So do I, but we can remember it. I do like to see a girl work with a will, even at frying fish. Most of 'em dawdle so at the few things they try to do. There's a piece of energy for you!" and Captain John leaned forward from his rocky seat to watch Ruth, who just then caught up the coffee-pot about to boil over, and with the other hand saved her frying-pan from capsizing on its unsteady bed of coals.
"She is a nice girl, and I'm much interested in her. Mr. Wallace says he will tell us her story by-and-by if we care to hear it. He has known the old man a long time."
"Don't forget to remind him, Aunty. I like a yarn after mess;" and Captain John went off to bring the first plate of fish to the dear old lady who had been a mother to him for many years.
It was a merry supper, and the moon was up before it ended; for everything "tasted so good" the hearty young appetites sharpened by sea air were hard to satisfy. When the last dinner had vanished and nothing but olives and oyster crackers remained, the party settled on a sloping rock out of range of the fire, and reposed for a brief period to recover from the
