In spring and summer they would gather flowers inland, but what they liked best was to play about on the sands, to go out boating with an old seaman they knew, or climb the rocks and get into very steep and giddy places.
[Illustration] Poor Frank Dunlop was an orphan, and was now the adopted son of Ara's father.

As for Tom, who was a year or two older, his father had wanted him to go into business at home in England, but nothing would satisfy the lad but going to sea, so he had been sent to rough it with his uncle in the stormy seas of the Frozen North.

The cruise now ended was his second, and Tom wasn't tired of the sea yet.
Frank went back to school, and appeared no more at the cottage until Christmas came round.

Then not only Uncle, but Pete and Briton came to spend a whole fortnight with the Dunlop family, and to make their final plans for the spring.

And I should say that no fortnight seemed to pass so quickly to the children as did the two weeks when their visitors stayed with them.
At last, one day in early spring, there left Hull on a trial trip one of the handsomest little steamers, and, for her size, one of the strongest that ever put to sea from that port.