The Tides of Barnegat

e patch on his back where some kitchen-maid had scalded him. Somehow the poor outcast brought home to her a sad page in her own history, when she herself was homeless and miserable, and no hand was stretched out to her. So she had coddled and fondled him, gaining his confidence day by day and talking to him by the hour of whatever was uppermost in her mind.

Few friendships presented stronger contrasts: She stout and motherly-looking--too stout for any waistline --with kindly blue eyes, smooth gray hair-- gray, not white--her round, rosy face, framed in a cotton cap, aglow with the freshness of the morning --a comforting, coddling-up kind of woman of fifty, with a low, crooning voice, gentle fingers, and soft, restful hollows about her shoulders and bosom for the heads of tired babies; Meg thin, rickety, and sneak- eyed, with a broken tail that hung at an angle, and but one ear (a black-and-tan had ruined the other)-- a sandy-colored, rough-haired, good-for-nothing cur of multifarious lineage, who was eith