."

"And am I like one of them?" queried the girl.

"Oh, no," he answered, "except your eyes, and they are absolutely
unreadable. Beyond them you are as easily understood as a flower that
only needs the sun's smiles."

It was a bit of his poetic imagery faintly understood by Mona. "You must
not mind my odd comparison," he continued, noticing her curious look,
"it's only a fancy of mine, and then, you are an odd stick, as they used
to say up in the country where I was born."

"And so you were not born in the city," she said with sudden interest.
"What Uncle Jess has told me and what you have said has made me hate the
city."

"I thought you said once you envied the city girls who came here in
yachts," laughed Winn.

"I might like to dress as they do," she answered, a little confused,
"but not to live where they do."

"And what has that to do with where I came from," he persisted, "and why
are you glad I am country-born?"

"Because," she replied bluntly, "Uncle Jess says country-born people are
usually honest and can be trusted."

Winn was silent, and as he looked at this simple island girl, so
unaffected and winsome, a new admiration came for her. "Give her a
chance," he thought, "and she would hold her own with Ethel Sherman
even."

"That is true," he said aloud, after a pause, thinking only of his own
business experience, "and the longer I remain here, the less I wish to
return to the city. I feel as your worthy uncle does, and for good
reasons. With the exception of an aunt, who has made a home for me, the
women whom I met there were not to be trusted, nor the men either. When
I left the old farm I was too young to understand people, but now that I
do, I often long for the old associates of my boyhood, and if my
business here becomes successful, I shall never go back to the city."

A look of gladness lit up the girl's face.

"I feel vexed over my business," continued Winn, longing to confide his
troubles to Mona and looking down into the dark mussel-coated chasm left
by the ebbing tide close by where they sat, "but I presume I shall come
out all right."

Then, as he glanced up at the roofless wall of the old mill just back of
them, its window openings showing the dark interior, he thought of the
girl who, a century ago, had come there to end her heartache and whose
story was fresh in his mind.

"Come, Mona," he said tenderly, as a sigh escaped him, "it's time we
returned to the village, for I am goin