shut herself up in a
bare-floored, cold-walled institution with narrow-minded Sister Sarahs;
to be, in a word, the Mother Superior of the House of Martha?"

That she should occupy this position seemed to me a crime. There were
many women in the world who could do all she was doing, but there were
few who could take her place in the world of full, true life.

When the fishing party returned, I went to the house to take leave of
our new friends.

"You must go?" said the Sand Lady. "And where, may I ask, is it
imperative that you should go?"

"To the island where you have so kindly allowed us to sojourn," I
replied.

"You sleep in the cabin of your boat, I believe?" she said; and I
answered that we did.

"Very well, then," continued she, "why not bring your floating home to
this island? It is in every way better than that. I will give you
exclusive rights over a little bay and an adjoining dell. There you can
cook your own meals when you like, or you can come to us when you like;
we always have more than enough for all who inhabit this island. In the
evening you can sit alone on the beach and think of the far-away loved
one, or you can come up to the house and play whist or twenty questions.
The Understudy can go fishing with my brother; they suit each other
admirably. What do you say?"

"I say, madam," I replied, with a bow, "the sands of which you are the
lady are the dust of diamonds, and your invitation is a golden joy."

"Bless me," she exclaimed, "what must you be out of check!"

That evening we sailed to Racket Island, brought away our belongings,
and established ourselves in the land-locked little bay, about a quarter
of a mile from the house of the Sand Lady.

Early the next morning I walked around to a pier where I had noticed a
good-sized yacht was moored. It was still there; apparently no one had
left the island. After our breakfast on the beach I told Walkirk to
devote himself to independent occupations, and walked up to the house. I
found the lady who had called herself a Person and the one of whom I did
not like to think as an Interpolation sitting together upon the piazza.
I joined them.

"Wouldn't you be very much obliged to me," asked the Person, after a
scattering conversation, in which I suppose I appeared as but a
perfunctory performer, "if I were to go away and leave you alone with
this lady?"

"As this is an island of plain speaking," I replied, "I will say, yes."

Both ladies laughe