should have come and lived in
my hut with me, Annemie, and sat out under the vine all day, and looked
after the chickens for me when I was in the town. They are such
mischievous little souls; as soon as my back is turned one or other is
sure to push through the roof, and get out amongst the flower-beds. Will
you never change your mind, and live with me, Annemie? I am sure you
would be happy, and the starling says your name quite plain, and he is
such a funny bird to talk to; you never would tire of him. Will you
never come? It is so bright there, and green and sweet-smelling, and to
think you never even have seen it!--and the swans and all,--it is a
shame."

"No, dear," said old Annemie, eating her last bunch of currants. "You
have said so so often, and you are good and mean it, that I know. But I
could not leave the water. It would kill me.

"Out of this window you know I saw my Jeannot's brig go
away--away--away--till the masts were lost in the mists. Going with iron
to Norway; the Fleur d'Epine of this town, a good ship, and a sure, and
he her mate; and as proud as might be, and with a little blest Mary in
lead round his throat.

"She was to be back in port in eight months bringing timber. Eight
months--that brought Easter time.

"But she never came. Never, never, never, you know.

"I sat here watching them come and go, and my child sickened and died,
and the summer passed, and the autumn, and all the while I
looked--looked--looked; for the brigs are all much alike; only his I
always saw as soon as she hove in sight because he tied a hank of flax
to her mizzen mast; and when he was home safe and sound I spun the hank
into hose for him; that was a fancy of his, and for eleven voyages, one
on another, he had never missed to tie the flax nor I to spin the hose.

"But the hank of flax I never saw this time; nor the brave brig; nor my
good man with his sunny blue eyes.

"Only one day in winter, when the great blocks of ice were smashing
hither and thither, a coaster came in and brought tidings of how off in
the Danish waters they had come on a waterlogged brig, and had boarded
her, and had found her empty, and her hull riven in two, and her crew
all drowned and dead beyond any manner of doubt. And on her stern there
was her name painted white, the Fleur d'Epine, of Brussels, as plain as
name could be; and that was all we ever knew--what evil had struck her,
or how they had perished, nobody ever told.

"Only the