m any more."

"That's so. And they were all alive and hearty this mornin'. It's an
awful thing for Luther. Has he told anything yit 'bout how it come to
happen?"

"Yes, a little. The schooner was from Maine, bound to New York. Besides
her own crew she had some Italians aboard, coal-handlers, they was,
goin' over on a job for the owner. Cap'n Davis says he saw right away
that the lifeboat would be overloaded, but he had to take 'em all,
there wa'n't time for a second trip. He made the schooner's crew and the
others lay down in the boat where they wouldn't hinder the men at the
oars, but when they got jest at the tail of the shoal, where the sea was
heaviest, them Italians lost their heads and commenced to stand up and
yell, and fust thing you know, she swung broadside on and capsized.
Pashy says Luther don't say much more, but she jedges, from what he does
say, that some of the men hung on with him for a while, but was washed
off and drownded."

"That's right; there was four or five there when we saw her fust.
'Twas Lute's grip on the centerboard that saved him. It's an awful
thing--awful!"

"Yes, and he would have gone, too, if it hadn't been for you. And you
talk about MY takin' risks!"

"Well, Jerry hadn't ought to have let you come."

"LET me come! I should like to have seen him try to stop me. The idea!
Where would I be if 'twa'n't helpin' you, after all you've done for me?"

"I'VE done? I haven't done anything!"

"You've made me happier 'n I've been for years. You've been so kind
that--that--"

She stopped and looked out of the window.

"It's you that's been kind," said the Captain. "You've made a home for
me; somethin' I ain't had afore sence I was a boy."

Mrs. Snow went on as if he had not spoken.

"And to think that you might have been drownded the same as the rest,"
she said. "I knew somethin' was happenin'. I jest felt it, somehow. I
told Elsie I was sure of it. I couldn't think of anything but you all
the forenoon."

The Captain sat up on the couch.

"Marthy," he said in an awed tone, "do you know what I was thinkin' of
when I was pullin' through the wust of it this mornin'? I was thinkin'
of you. I thought of Luther and the rest of them poor souls, of course,
but I thought of you most of the time. It kept comin' back to me that if
I went under I shouldn't see you ag'in. And you was thinkin' of me!"

"Yes, when that Mayo man said he had awful news, I felt sure 'twas you
he was goin' to te