youth who had died there in the first flush of
manhood and achievement.

His voice, steady and grave, came to her through hushed intervals when
the noise of the surf died out as the wind veered seaward. And she
listened, heart intent, until he spoke no more; and the sea-wind rose
again filling her ears with the ceaseless menace of the surf.

After a while he picked up his rod, and sat erect and cross-legged as
she sat, and flicked the flies, absently, across the grass, aiming at
wind-blown butterflies.

"All these changes!" he exclaimed with a sweep of the rod-butt toward
Widgeon Bay. "When I was here as a boy there were no fine estates, no
great houses, no country clubs, no game preserves--only a few
fishermen's hovels along the Bay of Shoals, and Frigate Light
yonder. . . . Then Austin built Silverside out of a much simpler,
grand-paternal bungalow; then came Sanxon Orchil and erected Hitherwood
House on the foundations of his maternal great-grandfather's cabin; and
then the others came; the Minsters built gorgeous Brookminster--you can
just make out their big summer palace--that white spot beyond Surf
Point!--and then the Lawns came and built Southlawn; and, beyond, the
Siowitha people arrived on scout, land-hungry and rich; and the tiny
hamlet of Wyossett grew rapidly into the town it now is. Truly this
island with its hundred miles of length has become but a formal garden
of the wealthy. Alas! I knew it as a stretch of woods, dunes, and
old-time villages where life had slumbered for two hundred years!"

He fell silent, but she nodded him to go on.

"Brooklyn was a quiet tree-shaded town," he continued thoughtfully,
"unvexed by dreams of traffic; Flatbush an old Dutch village buried in
the scented bloom of lilac, locust, and syringa, asleep under its
ancient gables, hip-roofs, and spreading trees. Bath, Utrecht, Canarsie,
Gravesend were little more than cross-road taverns dreaming in the sun;
and that vile and noise-cursed island beyond the Narrows was a stretch
of unpolluted beauty in an untainted sea--nothing but whitest sand and
dunes and fragrant bayberry and a blaze of wild flowers. Why"--and he
turned impatiently to the girl beside him--"why, I have seen the wild
geese settle in Sheepshead Bay, and the wild duck circling over it; and
I am not very aged. Think of it! Think of what this was but a few years
ago, and think of what 'progress' has done to lay it waste! What will it
be to-morrow?"

"Oh--oh!"