ill that I could hear the
shy whippoorwills singing that night as I lay awake in my downstairs
bedroom, and the scent of Mrs. Todd's herb garden under the window blew
in again and again with every gentle rising of the seabreeze.

XII. A Strange Sail

EXCEPT FOR a few stray guests, islanders or from the inland country, to
whom Mrs. Todd offered the hospitalities of a single meal, we were quite
by ourselves all summer; and when there were signs of invasion, late in
July, and a certain Mrs. Fosdick appeared like a strange sail on the
far horizon, I suffered much from apprehension. I had been living in the
quaint little house with as much comfort and unconsciousness as if it
were a larger body, or a double shell, in whose simple convolutions Mrs.
Todd and I had secreted ourselves, until some wandering hermit crab of a
visitor marked the little spare room for her own. Perhaps now and then a
castaway on a lonely desert island dreads the thought of being rescued.
I heard of Mrs. Fosdick for the first time with a selfish sense
of objection; but after all, I was still vacation-tenant of the
schoolhouse, where I could always be alone, and it was impossible not to
sympathize with Mrs. Todd, who, in spite of some preliminary grumbling,
was really delighted with the prospect of entertaining an old friend.

For nearly a month we received occasional news of Mrs. Fosdick, who
seemed to be making a royal progress from house to house in the inland
neighborhood, after the fashion of Queen Elizabeth. One Sunday after
another came and went, disappointing Mrs. Todd in the hope of seeing
her guest at church and fixing the day for the great visit to begin; but
Mrs. Fosdick was not ready to commit herself to a date. An assurance of
"some time this week" was not sufficiently definite from a free-footed
housekeeper's point of view, and Mrs. Todd put aside all herb-gathering
plans, and went through the various stages of expectation, provocation,
and despair. At last she was ready to believe that Mrs. Fosdick must
have forgotten her promise and returned to her home, which was vaguely
said to be over Thomaston way. But one evening, just as the supper-table
was cleared and "readied up," and Mrs. Todd had put her large apron
over her head and stepped forth for an evening stroll in the garden, the
unexpected happened. She heard the sound of wheels, and gave an excited
cry to me, as I sat by the window, that Mrs. Fosdick was coming right up
the