s bound to cosset me, so bimeby I won't stir out 'cept the sun
shines."

Silas Terry, or Uncle Terry, as everybody on Southport Island called
him, was, and for thirty years had been, the keeper of "The Cape" light,
situated on the outermost point of the island. To this he added the
daily duty of mail carrier to the head of the island, eight miles
distant, and there connecting with a small steamer plying between the
Maine coast islands and a shore port. He also, in common with other of
the islanders, tilled a little land and kept a few traps set for
lobsters. He was an honest, kind-hearted, and fairly well-read man,
whose odd sayings and quaint phrases were proverbial. With his wife,
whom everybody called Aunt Lissy, and adopted daughter Telly, he lived
in a neat white house close to the Cape light and, as he put it, "his
latch-string was allus out."

Uncle Terry had a history, and not the least interesting episode in it
was the entrance into his life of this same fair and blue-eyed girl.
Perhaps his own graphic description will best tell the tale:

"It was 'bout the last o' March, nigh onto eighteen year ago, and
durin' one o' the worst blows I ever rec'clect since I kep' the light,
that one mornin' I spied a vessel hard an' fast on White Hoss Ledge,
'bout half a mile off the pint. It had been snowin' some an' froze on
the windows o' the light, so mebbe she didn't see it 'fore she fetched
up all standin'. The seas was poundin' her like great guns, an' in her
riggin' I could see the poor devils half hid in snow an' ice. Thar
wa'n't no hope for 'em, for no dory could 'a' lived a moment in that
awful gale, and thar wa'n't no lifeboat here. Lissy an' me made haste to
build a fire on the pint, to show the poor critturs we had feelin' for
'em, an' then we just stood an' waited an' watched for 'em to go down.
It might 'a' been an hour, there's no tellin', when I saw a big bundle
tossin' light, an' comin' ashore. I ran over to the cove where I keep my
boats, and grabbed a piece o' rope an' boat hook, and made ready. The
Lord must 'a' steered that bundle, for it kept workin' along, headin'
for a bit o' beach just by the pint. I had a rope round my waist, an'
Lissy held onto the end, an' when the bundle struck I made fast with the
boat hook and the next comber tumbled me end over, bundle an' all, up
onto the sand. I grabbed at it, an' 'fore the next one come, had it high
an' dry out o' the way.

"It's allus been a puzzle to m