'Yes,' answered Arthur faintly, sinking down upon the shingles with his eyes half shut.

'Don't seem like it somehow,' laughed the man; 'best wait till you're a dozen years older, youngster. Hallo!'

The boatman called out 'Hallo!' because Arthur turned all at once very white, and then was sick on the stones.

The boatman put his hands in his trousers pockets and laughed out loud. He laughed for such a time, at least it seemed such a long time to Arthur, that he thought he would never leave off. He felt very angry at being laughed at, but he was too ill to say anything. He groaned and twisted upon the beach; and the sight of the running water, and the warm sands, and the brightpainted boats, and the smell of the tarred ropes and the stale sea-weeds and the lobster-pots, all made him worse.

'You'd best go home, sir,' observed the boat

man.

I can't; I can't move; leave me alone,' said Arthur.

'It's the baccy as you'd best leave alone, I think,' said the man.

and. I'll take you home.'

Tell me where you lives.

'Rock Cottage,' said Arthur; but I say, you

mustn't tell Aunt Harriette that I have been

smoking.'

'Let me alone for that,' said the boatman. 'I won't tell no Aunt Harriette. Get up and I'll give you a helping hand.'

But Arthur could not get up, so the goodnatured fisherman took this fine young man in his arms, for the boy was small for his age, and a light weight, and carried him along the beach to Rock Cottage.

Oh, I can tell you, Arthur did not feel comfortable during that journey. To have to meet Cousin Frank, and to hear him laughing at him for being such a goose. If he could have done so, he would have run away to hide himself; but he could not do that, and just as they came near the cottage, Aunt Harriette, who had been wondering why Arthur did not come home to dinner, ran herself to the front door, and looked very frightened when she saw her nephew in the arms of the fisherman.

What has happened? Is he much hurt?'

asked she.

'Nothing, ma'am,' said the man; 'only the young gentleman has been a-mistaking of himself for a man; that's all; and I think he won't trouble you for anything to eat this evening.'

Of course Aunt Harriette knew directly by the smell of the tobacco what had made Arthur ill. She said nothing to him, thinking he was too sick not to be sorry for what he had done; but she called the maid to help Arthur up-stairs.

No, no, mother,' said Cousin Frank's kind voice. 'Don't call the servant; I'll see to him.'

And while Frank undressed him and got him to bed, he never said a word about the smoking; neither did he in the evening when Arthur was well again, or at any other time; but he took the pipe out of his little cousin's jacket pocket and threw it away.

It was not very jolly, as you may think, to pass much of the first day of coming to a new place on the bed, and feeling so sick that he could not touch anything to eat; but Arthur had to do so, and he felt, instead of a man, very like a silly little boy.