kery Island, and,
although they were poor now, they had once been rich, and their name was
still as well known as the sun in Port Wilbarger, and all Wilbarger
district. Fine sea-island cotton was theirs once, and black hands to sow
and gather it; salt-air made the old house pleasant. The air was still
there, but not the cotton or the hands; and, when a keeper was wanted
for the drawbridge of the new railroad, what more natural than that one
should be selected who lived on the spot rather than a resident of Port
Wilbarger, two miles away?

The other house was on Wilbarger Island, at the edge of the town, and,
in itself uninteresting and unimportant, was yet accepted, like the
plain member of a handsome family, because of its associations; for here
lived Mrs. Manning and her daughter Marion.

The saw-mill was on the one point of solid mainland which ran down into
the water cleanly and boldly, without any fringe of marsh; the
river-channel was narrow here, and a row-boat brought the saw-miller
across to the Manning cottage opposite three times each day. His name
was Cranch, Ambrose Cranch, but everybody called him "Bro." He took his
meals at the cottage, and had taken them there for years. New-comers at
Wilbarger, and those persons who never have anything straight in their
minds, supposed he was a relative; but he was not--only a friend. Mrs.
Manning was a widow, fat, inefficient, and amiable. Her daughter Marion
was a slender, erect young person of twenty-five years of age, with
straight eyebrows, gray eyes, a clearly cut, delicate profile, and the
calmness of perfect but unobtrusive health. She was often spoken of as
an unmoved sort of girl, and certainly there were few surface-ripples;
but there is a proverb about still waters which sometimes came to the
minds of those who noticed physiognomy when they looked at her, although
it is but fair to add that those who noticed anything in particular were
rare in Wilbarger, where people were either too indolent or too
good-natured to make those conscientious studies of their neighbors
which are demanded by the code of morals prevailing on the coast farther
north.

Port Wilbarger was a very small seaport, situated on the inland side of
a narrow island; the coastwise steamers going north and south touched
there, coming in around the water-corner, passing the Old Town, the
mile-long foot-bridge, and stopping at the New Town for a few moments;
then backing around with flounderin