than in the unfolding of her less attractive time of
bud and blossom. Self had been laid aside now (which it never can be
until the effervescence of youth and hope are over). She had accepted
her position of old maid and universal benefactress; and sustained it
nobly, gracefully. She was thoroughly well-bred and agreeable, very
vivacious, astute, and intelligent, rather than intellectual, yet she
had the capacity (had her training been different) to have been both of
these.

I remember how it chanced that, after a long promenade, during which we
had discussed men, manners, books, customs, costumes, and politics, even
(that once tabooed subject for women, now free, to all), with infinite
zest and responsiveness that charmed us mutually, so that we swore
allegiance on the strength of this one day's rencontre, like two
school-girls or knights of old--remember how the dropping of her comb at
his feet caused Miss Lamarque to pause, compelling me to follow her
example, by reason of our intertwined arms, in front of the man at the
wheel, as he stooped to raise it and hand it to her with a seaman's bow.
His ready politeness, unusual for one in his station, determined us to
cultivate his maritime acquaintance, and in a short time we had drawn
forth the outlines of his story, simple and bare as this was of
incident.

His picturesque appearance had impressed us equally during the day, but
until now we had not met in concert about Christian Garth, for such we
soon found was the name of our polite pilot.

He was a Jerseyman, he told us, of German descent, married to the girl
of his heart, and living on the coast of that adventurous little State,
famous alike for its peaches and wrecks.

"Sall had a stocking full of money," he informed us, "silver, and
copper, and gold, when he married her, for her mother had been a famous
huckster--and never missed her post in the Philadelphia market for
thirty years, and this was her child's inheritance, and with this money
he had fixed up his old hut, till it looked 'e'en a'most inside like a
ship-captain's cabin.'"

And now Sall wanted him to stay at home, he informed us, with her and
the children, but somehow or other he could never tarry long at the
hearth, for the sea pulled him like it was his mother, and the spell of
the tides was on him, and he must foller even if he went to his own
destruction, like them men that liquor lures to loss, or the love of
mermaids.

"All land service is