y answers. A satisfying sweetness,
fleeting as last year's wild flowers, filled the whole cove. I thought
of dead Indian pipes, standing erect in pathetic dignity, the delicate
scales on their stems unfurled, refusing to crumble and pass away; the
ghosts of Indians.

The blue man parted his large lips and moved them several instants;
then his voice followed, like the tardy note of a distant steamer that
addresses the eye with its plume of steam before the whistle is heard.
I felt a creepy thrill down my shoulders--that sound should break
so slowly across the few yards separating us! "Are you also waiting,
madame?"

I felt compelled to answer him as I would have answered no other person.
"Yes; but for one who never comes."

If he had spoken in the pure French of the Touraine country, which is
said to be the best in France, free from Parisianisms, it would not
have surprised me. But he spoke English, with the halting though clear
enunciation of a Nova Scotian.

"You--you must have patience. I have--have seen you only seven summers
on the island."

"You have seen me these seven years past? But I never met you before!"

His mouth labored voicelessly before he declared, "I have been here
thirty-five years."

How could that be possible!--and never a hint drifting through the
hotels of any blue man! Yet the intimate life of old inhabitants is
not paraded before the overrunning army of a season. I felt vaguely
flattered that this exclusive resident had hitherto noticed me and
condescended at last to reveal himself.

The blue man had been here thirty-five years! He knew the childish joy
of bruising the flesh of orange-colored toadstools and wading amid long
pine-cones which strew the ground like fairy corncobs. The white birches
were dear to him, and he trembled with eagerness at the first pipe
sign, or at the discovery of blue gentians where the eastern forest
stoops to the strand. And he knew the echo, shaking like gigantic organ
music from one side of the world to the other.

In solitary trysts with wilderness depths and caves which transient
sight-seers know nothing about I had often pleased myself thinking the
Mishi-ne-macki-naw-go were somewhere around me. If twigs crackled or a
sudden awe fell causelessly, I laughed--"That family of Indian ghosts
is near. I wish they would show themselves!" For if they ever show
themselves, they bring you the gift of prophecy. The Chippewas left
tobacco and gunpowder about for