ad
watched most of their movements unseen herself, and now, standing at the
edge of the ravine, and looking down on them, uttered a soft but
thrilling amen to every prayer. When it was over, and the men prepared to
fill in the grave, she spoke to Welch in an undertone, and begged leave
to pay her tribute first; and, with this, she detached her apron and held
it out to them. Hazel easily climbed up to her, and found her apron was
full of sweet-smelling bark and aromatic leaves, whose fragrance filled
the air.

"I want you to strew these over his poor remains," she said. "Oh, not
common earth! He saved our lives. And his last words were, 'I love you,
Tom.' Oh, dear, oh, dear, oh, dear!" And with that she gave him the
apron, and turned her head away to hide her tears.

Hazel blessed her for the thought, which, indeed, none but a lady would
have had; and Welch and he, with the tears in their eyes, strewed the
spicy leaves first; and soon a ridge of shingle neatly bound with
sea-weed marked the sailor's grave.

Hazel's next care, and that a pressing one, was to provide shelter for
the delicate girl and the sick man, whom circumstances had placed under
his care. He told Miss Rolleston Welch and he were going to cross the bay
again, and would she be good enough to meet them at the bend of the river
where she would find four trees? She nodded her head and took that road
accordingly. Hazel rowed eastward across the bay, and, it being now high
water, he got the boat into the river itself near the edge of the shore,
and, as this river had worn a channel, he contrived with the boat-hook to
propel the boat up the stream, to an angle in the bank within forty yards
of the four trees. He could get no farther, the stream being now not only
shallow, but blocked here and there with great and rough fragments of
stone. Hazel pushed the boat into the angle out of the current, and
moored her fast. He and Welch then got ashore, and Miss Rolleston was
standing at the four trees. He went to her and said enthusiastically,
"This is to be your house. Is it not a beautiful site?"

"Yes, it is a beautiful site, but--forgive me--I really don't see the
house," was her reply.

"But you see the framework."

Helen looked all about, and then said, ruefully, "I suppose I am blind,
sir, or else you are dreaming, for I see nothing at all."

"Why, here's a roof ready made, and the frame of a wall. We have only to
wattle a screen between these four up