r-man. If I was,
I'd bring your chance into peril soon enough," said his father. "'Tis
t' be a fair day for fishin' the Skiff-an'-Punt grounds the morrow. Go
t' bed. I'll pray that wisdom may overcome your caution afore you're
decrepit."

Skipper John thought his son a great dunderhead. And Dickie Blue was a
dunderhead. No doubt about it. Yet the failing was largely the fault
of his years. A strapping fellow, this young Dickie Blue, blue-eyed in
the Newfoundland way, and merry and modest enough in the main, who had
recently discovered a critical interest in the comparative charms of
the maids of the harbor. There were so many maids in the world! Dang
it, it was confusing! There was Peggy Lacey. She was adorable. Nobody
could deny it. Had she worn roses in her cheeks she would have been
irresistible altogether. And there was the new schoolmistress from
Grace Harbor. That superior maid had her points, too. She did not lack
attractions. They were more intellectual than anything else. Still,
they had a positive appeal. There were snares for the heart in
brilliant conversation and a traveled knowledge of the world. Dang it,
anyhow, a man might number all the maids in the harbor and find charms
enough in each! Only a fool would choose from such an abundance in
haste. A wise man would deliberate--observe, compare, reflect; and a
sure conviction would come of that course.

* * * * *

Well, now, pretty Peggy Lacey, pretty as she was, was not aggressively
disposed. She was a passive, too sanguine little creature; and being
limpid and tender as well, and more loyal than artful, she had failed
to conceal her ardent attachment and its anxious expectancy. Had she
loosed a wink of challenge from her gray eyes in another direction,
the reluctance of Dickie Blue might have been reduced with astonishing
rapidity, and she could have punished his stupidity at will, had she
been maliciously inclined. Conceiving such practices to be both cheap
and artful, however, and being, after all, of a pretty sturdy turn of
character, she rejected the advantages of deceitful behavior, as she
called it, and in consequence lived in a state of cruel uncertainty.
Worse than that, she was no longer sought; and for this, too, she was
wholly responsible. In a spirit of loyalty to Dickie Blue, who
deserved nothing so devoted, she had repelled other advances; and
when, once, in a wicked mood of pique, as she afterward determined