our Winds. Wherever
there's any trouble, that woman is there, doing everything to help in
the tenderest way. She never says a harsh word about another woman,
and if she likes to card us poor scalawags of men down I reckon our
tough old hides can stand it."

"She always speaks well of you, Captain Jim," said Mrs. Doctor.

"Yes, I'm afraid so. I don't half like it. It makes me feel as if
there must be something sorter unnateral about me."

CHAPTER 7

THE SCHOOLMASTER'S BRIDE

"Who was the first bride who came to this house, Captain Jim?" Anne
asked, as they sat around the fireplace after supper.

"Was she a part of the story I've heard was connected with this house?"
asked Gilbert. "Somebody told me you could tell it, Captain Jim."

"Well, yes, I know it. I reckon I'm the only person living in Four
Winds now that can remember the schoolmaster's bride as she was when
she come to the Island. She's been dead this thirty year, but she was
one of them women you never forget."

"Tell us the story," pleaded Anne. "I want to find out all about the
women who have lived in this house before me."

"Well, there's jest been three--Elizabeth Russell, and Mrs. Ned
Russell, and the schoolmaster's bride. Elizabeth Russell was a nice,
clever little critter, and Mrs. Ned was a nice woman, too. But they
weren't ever like the schoolmaster's bride.

"The schoolmaster's name was John Selwyn. He came out from the Old
Country to teach school at the Glen when I was a boy of sixteen. He
wasn't much like the usual run of derelicts who used to come out to
P.E.I. to teach school in them days. Most of them were clever, drunken
critters who taught the children the three R's when they were sober,
and lambasted them when they wasn't. But John Selwyn was a fine,
handsome young fellow. He boarded at my father's, and he and me were
cronies, though he was ten years older'n me. We read and walked and
talked a heap together. He knew about all the poetry that was ever
written, I reckon, and he used to quote it to me along shore in the
evenings. Dad thought it an awful waste of time, but he sorter endured
it, hoping it'd put me off the notion of going to sea. Well, nothing
could do THAT--mother come of a race of sea-going folk and it was born
in me. But I loved to hear John read and recite. It's almost sixty
years ago, but I could repeat yards of poetry I learned from him.
Nearly sixty years!"

Captain Jim was silent for a s