aint. She was too fond of singing and dancing for that. But she was
a good woman, and nothing could make her happy that came from the
misery of another person. Her idea of goodness was like this light in
the lantern above us--something faithful and steady that warns people
away from shipwreck and danger.

Well, it happened one day, about this time forty-eight years ago, just
before I was ready to be born, my father had to go up to the village
of _La Trinite_ on a matter of business. He was coming back in his
boat at evening, with his sail up, and perfectly easy in his
mind--though it was after sunset--because he knew that my mother was
entirely capable of kindling the light and taking care of it in his
absence. The wind was moderate, and the sea gentle. He had passed the
_Point du Caribou_ about two miles, when suddenly he felt his boat
strike against something in the shadow.

He knew it could not be a rock. There was no hardness, no grating
sound. He supposed it might be a tree floating in the water. But when
he looked over the side of the boat, he saw it was the body of a dead
man.

The face was bloated and blue, as if the man had been drowned for
some days. The clothing was fine, showing that he must have been a
person of quality; but it was disarranged and torn, as if he had
passed through a struggle to his death. The hands, puffed and
shapeless, floated on the water, as if to balance the body. They
seemed almost to move in an effort to keep the body afloat. And on the
little finger of the left hand there was a great ring of gold with a
red stone set in it, like a live coal of fire.

When my father saw this ring a passion of covetousness leaped upon
him.

"It is a thing of price," he said, "and the sea has brought it to me
for the heritage of my unborn child. What good is a ring to a dead
man? But for my baby it will be a fortune."

So he luffed the boat, and reached out with his oar, and pulled the
body near to him, and took the cold, stiff hand into his own. He
tugged at the ring, but it would not come off. The finger was swollen
and hard, and no effort that he could make served to dislodge the
ring.

Then my father grew angry, because the dead man seemed to withhold
from him the bounty of the sea. He laid the hand across the gunwale
of the boat, and, taking up the axe that lay beside him, with a single
blow he chopped the little finger from the hand.

The body of the dead man swung away from the boat,