ittle basket for her out
of the sweet-scented sand-hill grass. The schoolmaster's wife used it
for years to keep her handkerchiefs in.

"Well, at last everything was ready--even to the logs in the big
fireplace ready for lighting. 'Twasn't exactly THIS fireplace, though
'twas in the same place. Miss Elizabeth had this put in when she made
the house over fifteen years ago. It was a big, old-fashioned
fireplace where you could have roasted an ox. Many's the time I've sat
here and spun yarns, same's I'm doing tonight."

Again there was a silence, while Captain Jim kept a passing tryst with
visitants Anne and Gilbert could not see--the folks who had sat with
him around that fireplace in the vanished years, with mirth and bridal
joy shining in eyes long since closed forever under churchyard sod or
heaving leagues of sea. Here on olden nights children had tossed
laughter lightly to and fro. Here on winter evenings friends had
gathered. Dance and music and jest had been here. Here youths and
maidens had dreamed. For Captain Jim the little house was tenanted
with shapes entreating remembrance.

"It was the first of July when the house was finished. The
schoolmaster began to count the days then. We used to see him walking
along the shore, and we'd say to each other, 'She'll soon be with him
now.'

"She was expected the middle of July, but she didn't come then. Nobody
felt anxious. Vessels were often delayed for days and mebbe weeks.
The Royal William was a week overdue--and then two--and then three.
And at last we began to be frightened, and it got worse and worse.
Fin'lly I couldn't bear to look into John Selwyn's eyes. D'ye know,
Mistress Blythe"--Captain Jim lowered his voice--"I used to think that
they looked just like what his old great-great-grandmother's must have
been when they were burning her to death. He never said much but he
taught school like a man in a dream and then hurried to the shore.
Many a night he walked there from dark to dawn. People said he was
losing his mind. Everybody had given up hope--the Royal William was
eight weeks overdue. It was the middle of September and the
schoolmaster's bride hadn't come--never would come, we thought.

"There was a big storm then that lasted three days, and on the evening
after it died away I went to the shore. I found the schoolmaster
there, leaning with his arms folded against a big rock, gazing out to
sea.

"I spoke to him but he didn't answe