aith got
the medicine for Sally Loundes and set out to take it to her. So fair
and lovely, that Faith hardly considered much the features of the road
she travelled; in that light any piece of ground was beautiful. The
road was very lonely after a little part of the village had been gone
through. It left the main street, then bid farewell to a few scattering
distant houses and approached what was called Barley Point;--a barren
piece of ground from which a beautiful view of the Sound and the ocean
line, and perhaps porpoises, could be had. But at the foot of this
field the road turned, round the end of that belt of woods spoken of;
and getting on the other side of it ran back eastward towards the
Lighthouse point. Between the woods and the sea, on this side, was a
narrow down that the farmers could make little of; and here the road,
if desolate, had a beauty of its own. On Faith's right was this strip
of tolling downs, grown with nothing but short grass and low blackberry
vines; and close at hand, just beyond its undulating line, the waves of
the sea beating in. Very little waves to-day, everything was so quiet.

At the Lighthouse point, a mile or more on, was a little settlement of
fishermen and others; but only one house stood on the way, and that
hardly disturbed the monotony or the solitude; it was so little, so
brown, and looked so of a piece with the barren country. That was Sally
Loundes' house. Faith met nobody till she got there.

When Faith came out of the house, the sun's place warned her she would
have no time to spare to get home. She set off with quicker pace,
though nowise concerned about it. There was no danger of anything in
Pattaquasset. But she had gone only a little part of her wild homeward
way when she met Mr. Simlins. Now Mr. Simlins was accustomed to take an
afternoon Sunday stroll and sometimes a long one; so it was no matter
of surprise to meet him, nor even to meet him there, for Mr. Simlins
was as independent in his choice of a walk as in everything else. But
_he_ was surprised.

"Hullo! my passenger pigeon," he exclaimed. "Why are you here all
alone, in this unfrequent place?"

"It's a very nice place," said Faith. "And it's not disagreeable to be
alone--though I am willing to meet you, Mr. Simlins."

"Haven't been quarrelling with anybody, have you?"

"No," said Faith, giving an amused look to this view of the subject.
"Do I look quarrelsome, Mr. Simlins?"

"I don't know how you look!