brought
a very fair return, and gave him, in the eyes of the shrewd, thrifty
neighbors, the prestige of a young man who was marked for success in the
world.

He had already formed an advantageous arrangement with his grandfather
and Captain Kittridge, by which a ship was to be built, which he should
command, and thus the old Saturday afternoon dream of their childhood be
fulfilled. As he thought of it, there arose in his mind a picture of
Mara, with her golden hair and plaintive eyes and little white hands,
reigning as a fairy queen in the captain's cabin, with a sort of wish to
carry her off and make sure that no one else ever should get her from
him.

But these midnight dreams were all sobered down by the plain
matter-of-fact beams of the morning sun, and nothing remained of
immediate definite purpose except the resolve, which came strongly upon
Moses as he looked across the blue band of Harpswell Bay, that he would
go that morning and have a talk with Mr. Sewell.

CHAPTER XXV

MISS EMILY

Miss Roxy Toothache was seated by the window of the little keeping-room
where Miss Emily Sewell sat on every-day occasions. Around her were the
insignia of her power and sway. Her big tailor's goose was heating
between Miss Emily's bright brass fire-irons; her great pin-cushion was
by her side, bristling with pins of all sizes, and with broken needles
thriftily made into pins by heads of red sealing-wax, and with needles
threaded with all varieties of cotton, silk, and linen; her scissors
hung martially by her side; her black bombazette work-apron was on; and
the expression of her iron features was that of deep responsibility, for
she was making the minister a new Sunday vest!

The good soul looks not a day older than when we left her, ten years
ago. Like the gray, weather-beaten rocks of her native shore, her strong
features had an unchangeable identity beyond that of anything fair and
blooming. There was of course no chance for a gray streak in her stiff,
uncompromising mohair frisette, which still pushed up her cap-border
bristlingly as of old, and the clear, high winds and bracing atmosphere
of that rough coast kept her in an admirable state of preservation.

Miss Emily had now and then a white hair among her soft, pretty brown
ones, and looked a little thinner; but the round, bright spot of bloom
on each cheek was there just as of yore,--and just as of yore she was
thinking of her brother, and filling her littl