Appledore Island, the largest of the seven which comprise the Isles of
Shoals, and which altogether make a little over six hundred acres.
Reuben said that they were now in Maine, for Appledore, Smutty Nose,
Duck, and Cedar belonged to Maine; while Star, White, and Londoner
belonged to New Hampshire. His mother was pleased to hear him apply his
geographical knowledge of the place so soon. She was sure now that he
never would forget that fact. They spent a short time in looking around
the island, with its attractive hotel, so finely situated, and its half
dozen pretty cottages. One of them Mrs. Tracy pointed out as the home of
Celia Thaster, who, she told them, was a poetess who had written so
feelingly of the sea, and who had told, in a pretty poem, how in the
years gone by she had often lighted with her own hands the light in the
lighthouse which they could see on White Island, a short distance from
them. The boys wished to go there, as they had never been near a
lighthouse; but as Mrs. Tracy felt that in their limited time Star
Island would, on the whole, afford them more pleasure and profit, they
took the little miniature steamer Pinafore, which constantly plied
between the two islands, and in a few minutes' time were landed on its
historic ground.

After they had dined at the Oceanic, a hotel kept by the same
proprietors as the Appledore House, on the island which they had just
left, they found that they had an hour and a half in which to look
around before the steamer should return to Portsmouth. As they sauntered
along over the rocks back of the hotel, they came near enough to the
little meeting-house, which was standing there, to read on its side the
following inscription:--

GOSPORT CHURCH.