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instead of looking after things when Willy and I
are off fishing, will only make one more for you
to run after! Why not take that great red-cheeked
girl who looks so good-natured and energetic? ”

Still, as Mrs. Holden put it, “Mrs. Jordan would
not be said by her husband,” and soon brought
him round to her way of thinking. The girl’s name
was Janet Graham, and she was an orphan, her father
having been lost at sea, and her mother dying of
‘consumption not long after. The poor-house had
been her home for. several years, and all the Hol-
dens liked her “first best,” their oldest boy declared.

Questioned by the still doubtful Mr. Jordan why
they liked her and what she could do in particular,
he was unable to specify, beyond tending babies
and rowing a boat, at both of which accomplishments
he declared “she was a beatum.” The conversation
was interrupted by Mrs. Jordan, who, holding Jenny
by the hand, informed her husband that the wind
‘was all going down, and if he did not hurry and
cast off, he would have to row them the whole
way home. As home was twelve miles distant, on
Swan’s Island, we do not wonder he stopped no
longer to inquire about Jenny’s good qualities.

He owned the whole island, and most capital
‘sheep pasturage he had there, as well as a farm
and several fish houses; and here he had lived
‘with his wife and nephew, Willy, for many years.
‘There was no other dwelling-house upon Swan’s,
‘and although besides Willy and himself there were
generally other men whom he employed in the
family, no woman ever came to bear Mrs. Jordan
‘company for any length of time. As she was Eng-
lish, she had no kith or kin this side the sea, and
although cheerful, even merry, yet frequently longed
for a little girl to go about with her as Willy did
‘with Charles, and now she had her.

In spite of Mrs. Jordan’s predictions, the wind
‘did not go down, and in good time they landed
safely at Swan’s Island. Willy was at the rough
pier to receive them, and to tell Jenny how glad
he was to see her; but after his aunt and she had
‘started. up the hill toward the house, he looked
-questioningly to his uncle.

“No,” returned Mr. Jordan, “she ain’t no beauty,
‘and she won’t never set no rivers on fire; but she
-does look stiddy, and your aunt was set on her.”

Swan’s Island would perhaps have seemed lone-
‘some te most children, but Jenny never found it so.
-As she crossed the threshold of the kitchen door,

JENNY OF SWAN'S.

she felt herself at home, and with loving interest
and earnestness threw herself into the life around
her.

They gave her a room of her own, under the
eaves of the low, unpainted, one-story house, and
she begged Mrs. Jordan to teach her how to keep
it dainty and nice, like all the rest of the quaint little
home. She had learned to read and write at Seal
Harbor, and as Willy always went off the island
winters to attend school, he taught her from the
day she came.

Mrs, Jordan knew all about sewing and cooking,
and having been a lady’s maid in the old country,
was acquainted with many little devices for improv-
ing Jenny’s rough skin, and beautifying her lustreless
hair, She was a good Christian woman besides,
and every Sunday the family gathered, and one or
another read the prayers and lessons her church
ordered for the day. Mr. Jordan soon found his
heart going out lovingly to the child, and, taking
her with him frequently to the sea side of the
island, where the gray gulls built their nests and
reared their young, was surprised at her intelligence
and touched by her affection for his wife. The sim-
ple, regular life, good food and wise care, improved
her health so much that in the course of three or
four years the strangers who came in summer to
visit the lonely island with its savage cliffs, its count-
less sea birds, and its one happy family, never thought
of her as being deformed, and even old friends, who

 

JENNY’S HOME.

knew her when she first lived with Mrs. Jordan,
could hardly believe their eyes when they looked
at the erect, red-cheeked maiden who walked like
a young Diana round the rocky shore, or jumped