o in seeing what
probe and pick and shovel could do.

It was at one of James Towne's old homes that we next met her. The
meeting, judging from our map of the village, was probably at Captain
Roger Smith's, though one could not be sure. There was no name on the
door, nor indeed any door to put a name on, nor indeed any house to put
a door on--just an ancient basement that the Daughter of the Island had
discovered and was having cleaned out. It badly needed it, nothing of
the kind having been done perhaps for over two hundred years.

"Come and see my find," she cried.

The testing probe having struck something that indicated a buried
foundation, there in the black pea field, this young antiquarian had
put men at work and was being rewarded by finding the ruins of some
ancient house. Portions of two rooms had been disclosed and the
stairway leading down into one of them.

"Come down the stairs," said the proud lady in the cellar.

"Oh, what narrow steps!" Nautica exclaimed.

"They used to build out those brick treads with wood to make them
wider," explained our hostess. "You can see where the wooden parts have
been burned away."

The two rooms were paved with brick, and in one a chimney-place had
come to light. Everywhere were bits of charred wood. Did no place in
James Towne escape the scourge of fire? A kitten came springing over
the mounds of excavated earth and began to prowl about the old
fireplace. Except for a skittish pebble that she chased across the
empty front, she found nothing of interest; no hint of savoury odours
from the great spit over the blazing logs that may have caused a James
Towne cat to sit and gaze and sniff some two centuries or more ago.

But we suddenly left the frivolous kitten upon being told of what had
been found in the other room just before we came. It was a heavy
earthen pot sunk below the floor. We crouched about it with great
interest, chiefly because we did not know what it was for. Perhaps it
was merely to collect the drainage. Anyway it was not what the Daughter
of the Island had fondly thought when it was first uncovered.

"I was sure," she laughed, "that I had found a pot of money."

Standing down there in the ruins we wondered what was the story of the
old house. What feet had trod those paved floors? What had those walls
seen and known of being and loving, of hopes and fears, of joys and
griefs, of life and death? Of all this the uncovered ruin told nothing.

While w