tain Jim's mayflowers added the last
completing touch to the charm of the night.

"I haven't seen any this spring, and I've missed them," said Anne,
burying her face in them.

"They ain't to be found around Four Winds, only in the barrens away
behind the Glen up yander. I took a little trip today to the
Land-of-nothing-to-do, and hunted these up for you. I reckon they're
the last you'll see this spring, for they're nearly done."

"How kind and thoughtful you are, Captain Jim. Nobody else--not even
Gilbert"--with a shake of her head at him--"remembered that I always
long for mayflowers in spring."

"Well, I had another errand, too--I wanted to take Mr. Howard back
yander a mess of trout. He likes one occasional, and it's all I can do
for a kindness he did me once. I stayed all the afternoon and talked
to him. He likes to talk to me, though he's a highly eddicated man and
I'm only an ignorant old sailor, because he's one of the folks that's
GOT to talk or they're miserable, and he finds listeners scarce around
here. The Glen folks fight shy of him because they think he's an
infidel. He ain't that far gone exactly--few men is, I reckon--but
he's what you might call a heretic. Heretics are wicked, but they're
mighty int'resting. It's jest that they've got sorter lost looking for
God, being under the impression that He's hard to find--which He ain't
never. Most of 'em blunder to Him after awhile, I guess. I don't
think listening to Mr. Howard's arguments is likely to do me much harm.
Mind you, I believe what I was brought up to believe. It saves a vast
of bother--and back of it all, God is good. The trouble with Mr.
Howard is that he's a leetle TOO clever. He thinks that he's bound to
live up to his cleverness, and that it's smarter to thrash out some new
way of getting to heaven than to go by the old track the common,
ignorant folks is travelling. But he'll get there sometime all right,
and then he'll laugh at himself."

"Mr. Howard was a Methodist to begin with," said Miss Cornelia, as if
she thought he had not far to go from that to heresy.

"Do you know, Cornelia," said Captain Jim gravely, "I've often thought
that if I wasn't a Presbyterian I'd be a Methodist."

"Oh, well," conceded Miss Cornelia, "if you weren't a Presbyterian it
wouldn't matter much what you were. Speaking of heresy, reminds me,
doctor--I've brought back that book you lent me--that Natural Law in
the Spiritual World--I didn't