to have mail-service, as it threatened to destroy one of the
important social features of the day, that of going to the post office
for letters. Also he was informed that automobiles were forbidden in
Nantucket, and that a train started daily across the Island, a
nine-mile journey, and sometimes arrived. The conductor and engineer,
both old seamen, were much more interested in a change of weather, a
passing ship, or a school of fish, than in the immediate schedule or
right of way.... And Cairns was given another glimpse of the
enchantress that had been hidden so long in the workaday vesture of the
little artist, as she unfolded:

"To me, there's real peace and silence away out there in the sea. Every
thought is a picture.... You know the little gray shingle houses are
built very close together, and many are flush with the sidewalk. They
don't draw the shades at night, and everyone uses little muslin
curtains which conceal nothing. One of my favorite things to do is to
walk along Pleasant Street to Lily Lane, or through Vestal Street, just
about dusk, and see the darling interiors of the spotless cottages. Not
really to stop nor stare, just to go softly and slowly by.... One house
has little heads around the tea-table with father and mother; another
has company for supper; and the next--just old folks are left--but all
so radiant as they shine out through the old-fashioned window-panes....
To have one of those places for one's own! It has seemed the happiest
destiny for me, but only for the very fortunate and elect.... I wonder
if they ever know of the night-birds that flutter at the window-panes
to see the happiness within?"

Cairns might have taken this very lightly; even with a reservation that
she knew realities did not fit the ideal; that such realities were not
for the elect always;--but he chose to regard it instead, as an
expression of Vina's yearning, which she felt safe in disclosing for
the sake of the ingenious picture she made.... He looked about this
remarkable studio in the heart of New York, where a really great task
was being wrought to endure. Sometimes it seemed to him that the
spirits of the saints came to rest in this place, where the woman
worshipped them through her work.... And he knew she meant much that
she said; that to her, work was not enough of the breath of life....
She had not completed her picture; rather life had not completed it for
her.

Cairns confided in Bedient the Nantucket sto