s of expression, and one could have listened forever, and have
asked for more and more songs of old Scotch and English inheritance and
the best that have lived from the ballad music of the war. Mrs. Todd
kept time visibly, and sometimes audibly, with her ample foot. I saw the
tears in her eyes sometimes, when I could see beyond the tears in mine.
But at last the songs ended and the time came to say good-by; it was the
end of a great pleasure.

Mrs. Blackett, the dear old lady, opened the door of her bedroom while
Mrs. Todd was tying up the herb bag, and William had gone down to get
the boat ready and to blow the horn for Johnny Bowden, who had joined a
roving boat party who were off the shore lobstering.

I went to the door of the bedroom, and thought how pleasant it looked,
with its pink-and-white patchwork quilt and the brown unpainted paneling
of its woodwork.

"Come right in, dear," she said. "I want you to set down in my old
quilted rockin'-chair there by the window; you'll say it's the prettiest
view in the house. I set there a good deal to rest me and when I want to
read."

There was a worn red Bible on the lightstand, and Mrs. Blackett's heavy
silver-bowed glasses; her thimble was on the narrow window-ledge, and
folded carefully on the table was a thick striped-cotton shirt that
she was making for her son. Those dear old fingers and their loving
stitches, that heart which had made the most of everything that needed
love! Here was the real home, the heart of the old house on Green
Island! I sat in the rocking-chair, and felt that it was a place of
peace, the little brown bedroom, and the quiet outlook upon field and
sea and sky.

I looked up, and we understood each other without speaking. "I shall
like to think o' your settin' here to-day," said Mrs. Blackett. "I want
you to come again. It has been so pleasant for William."

The wind served us all the way home, and did not fall or let the sail
slacken until we were close to the shore. We had a generous freight of
lobsters in the boat, and new potatoes which William had put aboard, and
what Mrs. Todd proudly called a full "kag" of prime number one salted
mackerel; and when we landed we had to make business arrangements to
have these conveyed to her house in a wheelbarrow.

I never shall forget the day at Green Island. The town of Dunnet Landing
seemed large and noisy and oppressive as we came ashore. Such is the
power of contrast; for the village was so st