a big handkerchief, we
set forward in a narrow footpath and made our way to a lonely place that
faced northward, where there was more pasturage and fewer bushes, and we
went down to the edge of short grass above some rocky cliffs where the
deep sea broke with a great noise, though the wind was down and the
water looked quiet a little way from shore. Among the grass grew such
pennyroyal as the rest of the world could not provide. There was a fine
fragrance in the air as we gathered it sprig by sprig and stepped along
carefully, and Mrs. Todd pressed her aromatic nosegay between her hands
and offered it to me again and again.

"There's nothin' like it," she said; "oh no, there's no such pennyr'yal
as this in the state of Maine. It's the right pattern of the plant, and
all the rest I ever see is but an imitation. Don't it do you good?" And
I answered with enthusiasm.

"There, dear, I never showed nobody else but mother where to find this
place; 'tis kind of sainted to me. Nathan, my husband, an' I used to
love this place when we was courtin', and"--she hesitated, and then
spoke softly--"when he was lost, 'twas just off shore tryin' to get in
by the short channel out there between Squaw Islands, right in sight o'
this headland where we'd set an' made our plans all summer long."

I had never heard her speak of her husband before, but I felt that we
were friends now since she had brought me to this place.

"'Twas but a dream with us," Mrs. Todd said. "I knew it when he was
gone. I knew it"--and she whispered as if she were at confession--"I
knew it afore he started to go to sea. My heart was gone out o' my
keepin' before I ever saw Nathan; but he loved me well, and he made me
real happy, and he died before he ever knew what he'd had to know if
we'd lived long together. 'Tis very strange about love. No, Nathan never
found out, but my heart was troubled when I knew him first. There's more
women likes to be loved than there is of those that loves. I spent some
happy hours right here. I always liked Nathan, and he never knew. But
this pennyr'yal always reminded me, as I'd sit and gather it and hear
him talkin'--it always would remind me of--the other one."

She looked away from me, and presently rose and went on by herself.
There was something lonely and solitary about her great determined
shape. She might have been Antigone alone on the Theban plain. It is not
often given in a noisy world to come to the places of great grie