bler, do you, Locke?" mother asked.
"Strange, too, that you think of Cassy in your business life instead
of me."

"Mary, could I break your settled habits. Cassy is afloat yet. I can
guide her hither and yon. Moreover, with her, I dream of youth."

"Is youth so happy?" we both asked.

"We think so, when we see it in others."

"Not all of us," she said. "You think Cassandra has no ways of her
own! She can make us change ours; do you know that?"

"May be."

A habit grew upon me of consulting the sea as soon as I rose in the
morning. Its aspect decided how my day would be spent. I watched it,
studying its changes, seeking to understand its effect, ever attracted
by an awful materiality and its easy power to drown me. By the shore
at night the vague tumultuous sphere, swayed by an influence mightier
than itself, gave voice, which drew my soul to utter speech for
speech. I went there by day unobserved, except by our people, for I
never walked toward the village. Mother descried me, as she would a
distant sail, or Aunt Merce, who had a vacant habit of looking from
all the windows a moment at a time, as if she were forever expecting
the arrival of somebody who never came. Arthur, too, saw me, as he
played among the rocks, waded, caught crabs and little fish, like all
boys whose hereditary associations are amphibious. But Veronica never
came to the windows on that side of the house, unless a ship was
arriving from a long voyage. Then her interest was in the ship alone,
to see whether her colors were half-mast, or if she were battered and
torn, recalling to mind those who had died or married since the ship
sailed from port; for she knew the names of all who ever left Surrey,
and their family relations.

Weeks passed before I had completed the furnishing of my room; I
had been to Helen's wedding, and had returned, and it was still in
progress. The ground was covered with snow. The sea was dark and rough
under the frequent north wind, sometimes gray and silent in an icy
atmosphere; sometimes blue and shining beneath the pale winter sun.
The day when the room was ready, Fanny made a wood fire, which burned
merrily, and encouraged the new chairs, tables, carpet, and curtains
into a friendly assimilation; they met and danced on the round tops
of the brass dogs. It already seemed to me that I was like the room.
Unlike Veronica, I had nothing odd, nothing suggestive. My curtains
were blue chintz, and the sofa and chairs were c