Crowded under the cliff are the bits of fishhouses, built, like
the cottages above, all of shingles all gray with the passing years, for
Quantuck history stretches back far into the long-ago, when, Town seven
miles away, was a prosperous whaling port. But though the summer
visitors come in schools like the bluefish, the little gray village on
the cliff is unchanging and unchanged.
In the very heart of the old settlement, poised on the verge of the
cliff, Valhalla and Dandelion Lodge were side by side, and the middle of
July found Dr. McAlister in one, in the other the Farringtons with Hubert
and Allyn as their guests.
"Valhalla can't hold you all," Billy had said, when they were making
their plans for the summer. "If we take the Lodge, there will be an
extra room, and Allyn and Hubert may as well use it. It really won't
make any difference how we divide up. At Quantuck the houses only count
on foggy days."
In fact, it had been Billy's idea, their choosing Quantuck, that summer.
Years before, in his young boyhood, the Farringtons had been there,
season after season, and he had always wanted to get back to the old
place. Again and again he had been prevented, and it was not until this
summer that he had succeeded in carrying out his plans. Now, for the
first time in years, Dr. McAlister had consented to take a long vacation;
Theodora's novel was locked up in the safe at home, waiting for
revision; Hubert was to be with them for three weeks of the time, and
Hope had come on from Helena to make the family circle complete.
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