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 THE WHITE CROWN, AND OTHER STO- 
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 THE BURGLAR WHO MOVED PARADISE. 
 Illustrated. i6mo, $1.25; paper, 50 cents. 
 
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 HOLD ON TIGHT, Miss (page 22)
 
 THE BURGLAR 
 
 WHO MOVED PARADISE 
 
 &***' ,<r^\ 
 BY HERBERT D WAP 
 
 BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
 HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 
 
 1897
 
 Copyright, 1897, 
 BY HERBERT D. WARD. 
 
 All rights reserved. 
 
 The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U. S. A. 
 Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Uougbtou & Co.
 
 DRAMATIS PERSONS OF THE OLD MAID'S 
 PARADISE 
 
 SCENE Fairharbor, a town on the Massachusetts Coast. 
 
 Hero .... 
 Heroine . 
 Maid to Corona . 
 Brother to Corona . 
 Sister-in-Law to Corona 
 Niece to Corona 
 
 Friends to Corona 
 
 A Builder 
 
 Boy to Corona . 
 
 A Dog . . . 
 
 A Horse 
 
 Neighbors. 
 
 Sub-Hero 
 
 A Cottage. 
 
 Corona (Owner of the Cottage). 
 
 Puelvir. 
 
 Tom. 
 
 Susy. 
 
 A Baby. 
 \ Mary. 
 /Effie. 
 
 Mr. Timbers. 
 
 Zero. 
 
 Matthew Launcelot. 
 
 Lady of Shalott. 
 
 A Widower. 
 
 17Ki J 5-1
 
 NOTE 
 
 IT may be remembered by a few of my 
 friendly readers that I had, some years ago, 
 the pleasure of recording for them the expe- 
 riences of an old maid who built a matched 
 board cottage at the seaside, and with vari- 
 ous episodes more or less interesting to her 
 friends, but all of them absorbing to her, 
 lived in it happily ever after. The adven- 
 tures of Corona, of Puelvir her maid, of 
 the Raspberry Man, who wooed Puelvir 
 unsuccessfully, and married a widow with 
 four ; of a boy, a dog, a horse, and a bur- 
 glar, all of them closely intertwined with 
 Corona's history, were conscientiously re- 
 lated, and have been amiably considered by 
 a too generous public. 
 
 As the volumes to which I allude are no 
 longer recent publications it may be pru- 
 dent to recall more minutely that Corona
 
 vi NOTE 
 
 had been robbed of a five-hundred-dollar 
 bond, and that in the early autumn follow- 
 ing this incident, while she sat calculating 
 the costs of her non-recovery (it amounted, 
 Z remember, to four hundred and eighty -two 
 dollars and thirty-six and a half cents) a 
 gentleman had arrived unexpectedly at the 
 Old Maid's Paradise. He was a widower 
 and an old acquaintance, and he helped 
 Corona do the sum about the detectives. It 
 was September, and the glory of that which 
 is irrevocably passing away was on the sea 
 and on the harbor shore. Corona and the 
 widower sat together and talked of friend- 
 ship and the present very prettily. Corona 
 declined to discuss either the past or the 
 future. 
 
 Her biographer, indeed, raised the ques- 
 tion, "Had the most dangerous burglar of 
 all climbed up to Paradise? " But the 
 query was never answered. It has often 
 been my wish, and at times my intention, 
 to reply to this question myself by further 
 annals of the history of Paradise. Having
 
 NOTE Vll 
 
 been unable to carry out this design I am 
 happy to give way to another plan and pen. 
 To the following sympathetic effort to repre- 
 sent the burglar in Paradise, I offer my 
 heartiest good will, asking of my readers of 
 an earlier time only that they extend to this 
 little story the same kindness of heart which 
 once they offered to mine. 
 
 ELIZABETH STUART PHELPS.
 
 AUTHOR'S PREFACE 
 
 THE following narrative, it is needless 
 to say, is entirely from the man's point of 
 view. It may be the fact that the woman 
 sees only the heraldic colors, and the man 
 the marshaling of arms upon the shield. 
 However that may be, it is well to have the 
 family coat-of-arms presented from every 
 point of view. Again, from a feminine 
 standpoint, it is to be expected that the 
 "Sub-hero" should be of the masculine de- 
 nomination. But a man is not to be eter- 
 nally snubbed, even if he is only a lay 
 figure in a story. And so, by the privilege 
 of being the last writer on the subject, I 
 have seen to it that the despised " sub " has 
 arisen past all intermediate stages until he 
 plays the principal part to the heroine in 
 this little drama of life. 
 
 A house makes a very good hero for an
 
 X AUTHOR'S PREFACE 
 
 "old maid" to beguile an audience with. 
 But we are sure that if we promote the man 
 and degrade the dwelling to its proper place 
 in the dramatis personce, and drop the "old 
 maid " altogether, the play will have truer 
 proportions and move from scene to scene 
 with more heroic satisfaction. 
 
 HERBERT D. WARD.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 I. THE WIDOWER . . . -1 
 
 II. THE WEDDING 27 
 
 III. THE WEDDING JOURNEY . . -47 
 
 IV. THE FIRST MISUNDERSTANDING . . 68 
 V. DEEP-SEA FISHING 86 
 
 VI. THE POINT .... .106 
 
 VII. THE MARCH OF PROGRESS .... 125 
 
 VIII. PARADISE AFLOAT . . . ... 148 
 
 IX. PARADISE LOST 169 
 
 X. PARADISE FOUND 188 
 
 XI. THE SURRENDER OF PCJELVIR . 211
 
 THE BURGLAR WHO MOVED 
 PARADISE 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 THE WIDOWER 
 
 ALTHOUGH there has been no evidence of 
 the fact up to the time of this writing, nev- 
 ertheless the widower had a name. Why 
 there should have been any mystery about 
 it is hard to explain. Perhaps an exagger- 
 ated feminine delicacy forbade its being 
 published. Perhaps that spirit of aggrava- 
 tion, which might be called the stimulator 
 of curiosity and which belongs peculiarly to 
 the gentler sex, prompted its suppression. 
 
 For the widower's name was neither un- 
 comfortably suggestive, like Washington 
 Sudds, Esq., or Mr. Wiley T. Rickey, nor 
 was it aristocratic like Reginald Guelph de 
 Somerset. On the other hand it was not
 
 2 THE WIDOWER 
 
 elemental like Smith nor rare like Toxteth. 
 Suffice it to say that the widower was a man 
 of the better classes of intelligence and means. 
 His name (why juggle with the subject any 
 longer?) was Alexander Hensleigh. The 
 pedigree of Alexander is not difficult to 
 trace ; but his patronymic had descended 
 to him through English, and after these 
 through Nova Scotian ancestors until, like 
 all of the best things, the name and the race 
 had become bone of our Republic. 
 
 It was March, and all that the third month 
 of the year implies to the city of Boston. 
 There had been a storm at sea and a blizzard 
 on land. Vessels had been driven on shore ; 
 cars had been blockaded in the streets. It 
 was the third day of the storm, and the old 
 Eastern Depot congealed under a draught, 
 the quality of which could not have been 
 produced without the boundaries of New 
 England. 
 
 The 10.45 Fairharbor train was waiting 
 on the track. The engine was just backing 
 to make the connection, and it was within
 
 THE WIDOWER 3 
 
 two or three minutes of the starting time. 
 A tall gentleman with fur cap and ulster, 
 black beard inclining to gray, and eager 
 eyes, paced the platform nervously. He 
 had just run through the whole train for the 
 third time, staring each of the lady passen- 
 gers almost out of countenance. He was 
 now engaged in consulting the station clock, 
 and now in glaring at the gateway. When 
 he did not bite his mustache he made no 
 pretense of disguising his disappointment. 
 He scowled at every one who was unfortu- 
 nate enough to cross his line of vision. 
 
 There was hardly a minute left. The 
 conductor with the white mustache, whom 
 all the Fairharbor people knew with a more 
 or less degree of train intimacy, stood ready, 
 watch in hand. The engine wheezed im- 
 patiently. 
 
 "All aboard! " shouted the conductor. 
 
 At that moment a tall figure walked 
 through the gate. It did not hurry. It 
 glided composedly along until it reached 
 the rear car of the train. The conductor
 
 4 THE WIDOWER 
 
 tipped his hat and smiled a welcome, for 
 he recognized a favorite summer passenger. 
 He helped the lady up, and then lifted his 
 hand. The engineer opened the throttle 
 slowly. 
 
 There was one vacant seat and Corona 
 dropped into it. Corona, was a striking- 
 looking woman. She was a strong, mobile 
 blonde, with chestnut hair, and a firm 
 mouth that looked a little severe in repose, 
 and that curved and fascinated when in 
 action. Her eyes could be as cold as a 
 tempered blade or as affectionate as a violet, 
 according to her mood. Corona was tall 
 and trig. She was highly bred in every 
 movement, perhaps too reserved to suit a 
 chance acquaintance. But the old friend 
 might once in a while catch a gleam of 
 forget-me-not in her eyes, a flush of fidelity 
 in her cheeks, a rose of passion in her lips, 
 a constancy that illumined her whole coun- 
 tenance, which proclaimed, in spite of her 
 New England bearing, the woman for whose 
 attainment a man might well spend his life.
 
 THE WIDOWER 5 
 
 New England women have been much 
 misunderstood and carelessly called self- 
 sufficient. But their manner is only a mat- 
 ter of indirect radiation. It is healthier 
 because it is so. What manner of house- 
 holder is he who wants the furnace contin- 
 ually on draught, blistering the pure at- 
 mosphere of the home, or of the hearth? 
 Corona had enough warmth in her for those 
 she loved, and for the one elect who should 
 discover her to herself and to him, even 
 though she did look a little unapproachable 
 in her present attitude. 
 
 During the winter Corona lived in one of 
 the Boston suburbs with Tom, her brother, 
 and Susy, her sister-in-law. Tom and Susy 
 had a baby, and something was always the 
 matter with the baby. This time it was 
 deferentially called bad dreams. No one 
 had slept the night before, and Corona had 
 to take the early train with Tom in order to 
 be driven to their little station. This morn- 
 ing Tom was late, and Corona had almost 
 missed her Fairharbor train. As she looked
 
 6 THE WIDOWER 
 
 out of the window, she gave the impression 
 of being absorbed by eternal verities. One 
 would have thought that she was analyzing 
 the last novel by Tolstoi, with its unques- 
 tionable moral aim, and its questionable 
 immoral characters, or that she was won- 
 dering whether the time had come for the 
 organization of a society for the propaga- . 
 tion of Buddhism on Beacon Street. But 
 Corona had a sane mind. It was occupied 
 with nothing less than the circumstance that 
 her summer house was leaking. 
 
 Zero had leisurely written her about it the 
 week after he had found it out. Zero was 
 Corona's boy-of -all-laziness, one of the most 
 important members of her summer Para- 
 dise, the currier of her horse and favors, 
 an institution for the absorption of extra 
 doughnuts and uneaten desserts, a part of her 
 sea life, and as necessary as the stove in the 
 kitchen or the rocks upon the beach. And 
 Zero kept the keys of Paradise in winter. 
 
 Corona proceeded now to draw forth from 
 her muff this boy's letter, and to meditate
 
 THE WIDOWER V 
 
 further upon the humid problems which 
 dampen every owner and builder of his own 
 house at some time or other in his ardent 
 career. Corona had put off her regular 
 midwinter trip to Fairharbor on account of 
 the baby. But a leak was different. Baby 
 or no baby, a leak must be mended, or 
 patched, or darned. This was Corona's first 
 own leak, and she was vigorously wondering 
 what ought to be done under the circum- 
 stances. So she had telegraphed Mr. Tim- 
 bers to meet her at Paradise at half past 
 twelve. Mr. Timbers was the builder of 
 the Old Maid's Paradise. And she had 
 telegraphed Zero to harness up The Lady 
 and meet her when the train came in. The 
 Lady of Shalott was Corona's horse. Un- 
 like her mistress, the horse was not a sum- 
 mer guest. She stayed among the winter 
 people in Zero's care. But all Corona's 
 calculations stopped with telegrams. She 
 looked from the letter to the white snow 
 outside, helplessly awaiting a practical in- 
 spiration. She wished she wished
 
 8 THE WIDOWER 
 
 " Is this seat engaged ? May I ? may I, 
 Corona?" 
 
 She started at the familiar voice, and 
 glanced around and up. A tall man de- 
 voured the face now flushed out of its se- 
 renity, and looked down. It was a year ago 
 last fall since he had bade her good-by on 
 the porch of her own house by the Septem- 
 ber sea. Not for a moment since had the 
 picture which her last attitude had etched 
 upon his heart faded from his imagination. 
 
 "May I?" he repeated gently. She saw 
 that his lips quivered, and a great wave of 
 pity for him obscured in spite of herself her 
 startled eyes. She moved closer to the win- 
 dow and automatically held out her hand. 
 
 "Where where do you come from? 
 You man, you?" 
 
 Alexander Hensleigh took his seat and 
 took her hand, and laughed softly with the 
 content of a successful hunter. The dream 
 of eighteen months the dream to be near 
 her, to touch her hand, to watch her face, 
 to hear her voice, to be warmed by her smile
 
 THE WIDOWER 9 
 
 had now come to pass. Only he who 
 has loved in doubt and distance can under- 
 stand the bitterness, the happiness, the un- 
 certainty, the hope, of such long waiting. 
 A hundred times a day he knew that he 
 would never see her again, and that either 
 he or she would die, and that such bliss as 
 only she might bestow could never be for 
 him. And as many times he knew that he 
 should see her, and he felt that the one 
 desire of his heart must be the logical ear- 
 nest of its fulfillment. 
 
 Thus two people meet in a crowd. To 
 the passenger across the aisle, if he notices 
 them at all, the two are like cinders that 
 have accidentally touched in a draught. 
 But only they know that an epoch, as im- 
 portant to them as the creation, has over- 
 taken their lives. Corona looked at her old 
 friend with a mixture of resentment and 
 admiration for the masterfulness by which 
 she had been entrapped. 
 
 "I wrote you," he said quietly, "about 
 three weeks ago, to expect me."
 
 10 THE WIDOWER 
 
 "I did n't get it." 
 
 "Your brother told me this morning that 
 he had a letter for you somewhere. I re- 
 member he smiled in a peculiar way." 
 
 " I '11 never trust Tom as long as I live 
 again with my mail! " 
 
 "I hope you never will have to," Hens- 
 leigh insinuated gently. "I have brought 
 it myself." He took the letter out of his 
 overcoat pocket, showed her the address, 
 and then put it back. 
 
 "So Tom told you that I was to be on 
 this train ? " Corona tapped her finger on 
 the back of her hand. "I see it all. It 's a 
 conspiracy. I hope you feel satisfied with 
 this underhand performance ! " she flashed in 
 her old way. " Besides, I '11 take my letter. " 
 
 "I certainly do. No, you won't." This 
 was spoken with a quiet assurance that 
 startled Corona more than anything else 
 could have done. She glanced up at his 
 face hurriedly. She read there the calm 
 expression of one who was master of the 
 situation. She felt like crying out aloud in
 
 THE WIDOWER 11 
 
 protest. But those lips that had now be- 
 come firm, those insistent eyes, told her that 
 the time had come at last when she could 
 no more escape him than a bird can escape 
 from a locked cage. And she respected 
 him, womanlike, all the more for it. 
 
 Alexander Hensleigh settled back in his 
 seat comfortably. For a man who had 
 finally severed every strand that bound him 
 to his past life, and to whom this moment 
 was as important as the sun after a week's 
 tempest is to the driven ship, he certainly 
 exhibited few signs of anxiety. Many 
 months of self -distrust had been succeeded 
 by a kind of exaltation as the woman beside 
 him stepped upon the train. 
 
 He took Zero's letter from her fingers 
 exactly as if he owned her, and as if he 
 were not guilty of unpardonable imperti- 
 nence. This she helplessly allowed. 
 
 "It is from Zero. You can read it," she 
 said. She caught her breath, wondering 
 what was coming next. Of what audacity 
 was this widower not capable in his present
 
 12 THE WIDOWER 
 
 mood? He opened the letter, and read as 
 follows. The letter was written on a soiled 
 half of a store sheet of paper ruled blue : 
 
 MISS KORONOH : i want to tell you that 
 yure Hous is leekin badly in the Pallor. 
 You kin almost Katch dinners There, i 
 Think you ort to Sea about it. No one hez 
 broke in yet. 
 
 Your Obedyuntly, ZERO. 
 
 They both laughed, and their eyes met 
 merrily. 
 
 "It is so good to laugh," he said, "and 
 I thank God that neither Matthew Launce- 
 lot nor Puelvir is here to matronize you this 
 time. I want you all to myself for once in 
 my life." 
 
 "You '11 find Zero at the other end," she 
 suggested demurely. "I 've built a kitchen 
 since you were at Paradise," she added, 
 with the charming irrelevance of a woman 
 who will go to any length to change the 
 subject.
 
 THE WIDOWER 13 
 
 "Ah! " replied Hensleigh without enthu- 
 siasm. 
 
 "Yes, a brand-new kitchen, with a room 
 on top for Puelvir. She calls it her house; 
 she moved in those maroon and indigo 
 curtains of hers before the carpenters were 
 out it 's perfectly delightful. The old 
 kitchen is the dining-room now, and there 's 
 a lovely storeroom. You can't think how 
 happy she is ! " 
 
 "Really? I'm glad Puelvir is happy," 
 answered Hensleigh with dark significance. 
 "Here 's Zero's letter," he continued in an 
 anxious and aimless tone. 
 
 Their hands touched as he gave her the 
 letter back. She did not immediately with- 
 draw her fingers as they were hidden under 
 her muff. Strange how lonely and helpless 
 she felt when she stepped aboard that train ! 
 Life was as bleak as the sky to her then. 
 Now summer seemed suddenly to have 
 sprung into existence. Indeed, at that 
 moment the sun blazed out for the first time 
 after these many terrible days of storm.
 
 14 T1IE WIDOWER 
 
 As usual, on the Fairharbor branch, the 
 car was full. The conductor with the white 
 mustache took up their tickets, and after 
 a pleasant word passed on. The marshes 
 of Lynn, hidden by snow and ice, began to 
 glitter in the new sun. Even the bay be- 
 yond assumed an air of cheerfulness entirely 
 inconsistent with the tempestuous month. 
 Hensleigh leaned over to pull the shade 
 down, in order to shut out the reflection of 
 the light, the more glaring because the 
 more unexpected. But Corona shook her 
 head and looked out dreamily. 
 
 Then the man bent close to her, and their 
 faces were both lighted by the sun. He 
 whispered, and the rumble of the train 
 drowned the sound of his voice to every 
 other ear but hers : 
 
 "You know, Corona, why I have come?" 
 
 "Why? How should I? Why?" She 
 made a desperate effort to look unconscious, 
 but her risen color belied her affectation. 
 This sign of weakness made her angry with 
 herself, and then with him.
 
 THE WIDOWER 15 
 
 "I have loved you too long, Corona, for 
 you not to know it." 
 
 " I suppose that is the reason you left me 
 sixteen years ago." 
 
 "Now, now, Corona, don't let us quar- 
 rel! Time is too precious. We are too 
 old." 
 
 "Speak for yourself, sir! " frigidly. 
 
 "I didn't mean that. You know I 
 did n't I meant " 
 
 "I 'm afraid it 's no use, Mr. Hensleigh; 
 we always did quarrel, and we always shall. 
 Do you think you can neglect a woman for 
 the best part of her life marry somebody 
 else and then come back, swear eternal 
 love, and expect her to fall into your arms 
 like a pet poodle? The East and the West 
 are different, sir." She brought the shade 
 down sharply to hide her emotion. 
 
 By this time all the confidence of the few 
 moments ago had died out of the man's 
 heart. He bent his head and bit his lips to 
 control his words. As he was silent longer 
 than she expected for one side of a quar-
 
 16 THE WIDOWER 
 
 rel is n't much fun, even at the rate of thirty 
 miles an hour Corona glanced at him 
 with that intuitive sideways motion that 
 makes even the most commonplace of women 
 mysterious to masculine minds. She saw 
 her old friend's dejection, and she pitied 
 him for the second time. 
 
 "I have given up everything, Corona," 
 he began again gravely. "I have sold my 
 house, disposed of my business, and have 
 come East to stay to stay, Corona, for- 
 ever with you if you will have me, dear." 
 
 It was now her turn to be silent. This 
 was a devotion that she could not taunt. 
 
 "Let me think," she said, with a swift 
 glance of confidence that made a man of 
 him again. "Ask me later Ah, there 's 
 the sea. How beautiful! How happy! " 
 
 " Here you are, Miss Corona. Take you 
 right over!" The pilot of the Fairharbor 
 stage jumped forward as Corona stepped 
 out. The air was salt and cold, but how 
 fresh and pure ! Nobody noticed her com-
 
 THE WIDOWER 17 
 
 panion, but Corona, as he helped her off 
 the car, had leaned upon his arm more 
 heavily than one would expect a hearty, 
 modern woman to do. She had also given 
 him a look of gratitude, so swift that not 
 even the stage-driver had noticed it. The 
 snow was heaped high around the station. 
 
 " Take you over safe as a dory on a float ! 
 Got new runners on this morning. This is 
 the worst we ever had. Snow draws three 
 feet everywhere on a level," insisted the 
 driver affably. 
 
 "My own carriage is here to meet me." 
 Corona spoke with the dignity that only a 
 horse-holder can assume. " Zero is here to 
 meet me." 
 
 " He ! he ! ! he ! ! ! " irreverently snickered 
 the driver. 
 
 "Isn't Zero here as I telegraphed?" 
 Corona asked hastily. 
 
 "He 's there, all righjb, on the other side, 
 but he! he!! he!!!" 
 
 Corona motioned to her companion as she 
 hurried over. It was true, there was her
 
 18 THE WIDOWER 
 
 faithful Zero a boy of about fifteen 
 standing up to his hips in snow at the head 
 of a prancing, snorting, kicking horse. 
 Apparently The Lady of Shalott was doing 
 the best she could to stand on her head. 
 In the pursuance of this noble effort she 
 had floundered into a six-foot drift and was 
 rapidly drawing the boy out of sight. And 
 behind that horse was a buggy. 
 
 "Why, Zero!" exclaimed the proprietor 
 of the outfit. 
 
 "Hay?" spluttered Zero blankly. 
 
 "Oh, I forgot," said Corona, "the boy is 
 as deaf as a boulder, and I forget it every 
 spring." 
 
 "I 'm dum glad ye 've come, miss," said 
 the hapless boy, bobbing the snow out of his 
 eyes. "I thought ye hadn't come and wuz 
 wonderin' how to get in. I 've hed one 
 policeman and three men holdin' of this 
 hoss, and bin two hours gettin' here. It 
 wuzorfurl! Whoa, there! Whoa!" 
 
 "But, Zero, why didn't you put her into 
 a sleigh?"
 
 THE WIDOWER 19 
 
 "Hay?" 
 
 "Sleigh! Sleigh!" 
 
 " Way ? " asked Zero intelligently. " Yes, 
 I hed to walk her all the way." 
 
 The engine at this crisis let off steam, 
 and the boy lost his footing as The Lady 
 dashed deeper into the drift. One degree 
 of angle more and the buggy would have 
 been capsized. 
 
 "No, sleigh?" 
 
 "You didn't say nothin' about sleigh. 
 You said to bring down yer team, and here 
 she is, the hull of it, and I got all I want of 
 it, you kin betchyer life on that." The tears 
 began to come to the desperate boy's eyes. 
 
 "Zero, I am surprised" 
 
 "Wise?" said Zero. "I ain't so wise 
 as you be. Me an' The Lady are both 
 blarsted fools to be here anyhow." 
 
 "Dear me!" said Corona, "the boy is 
 growing up. He is learning to swear." 
 When she had left, last fall, Zero was as 
 mild as a clam. 
 
 By this time the buggy would have col-
 
 20 THE WIDOWER 
 
 lapsed had not the widower plunged and 
 held it by the top hinges. 
 
 "I kin hold on jest about one more minnit 
 with that dum'd engine puffin' so ! " inter- 
 jected Zero. 
 
 But Hensleigh had already jumped into 
 the buggy on the windward side and held 
 the reins with a practiced hand. "I '11 
 take the horse around to the stable and you 
 start on in the coach. You '11 take us up 
 on the way. This is n't safe for you. Hurry 
 up ! Get in, Zero ! " 
 
 "Then it isn't safe for you," pleaded 
 Corona, with a quiver in her voice. 
 
 "Oh yes, it is, the snow is too deep to 
 hurt, anyway." But he was glad she was 
 troubled about him. 
 
 There was a scramble. The boy shot in 
 as from a catapult. There was a prancing 
 and then a dash forward. The buggy 
 lurched, and Corona gave a low cry of 
 fright. But pretty soon the horse, finding 
 its master, settled down to a less dramatic 
 coup de pied. As Corona turned to the
 
 THE WIDOWER 21 
 
 Fairharbor coach, now ridiculously low on 
 its unaccustomed runners, it occurred to her 
 that Alexander Hensleigh was just the kind 
 of a man she needed to take care of her. 
 
 Mr. Timbers, clad in a tremendous 
 ulster, was stamping his feet impatiently 
 on the porch of the Old Maid's Paradise. 
 The long, easterly swell leaped rhythmically 
 upon the frosted rocks, lapping the snow 
 higher and higher with the tide. At last 
 the stage struggled off the traveled road 
 into the little arc that bounded Corona's 
 cottage. She had left the downs past their 
 autumn brilliancy and soberly taking on 
 their Turkish coloring, like a vast rug, and 
 now they were clothed like a bride in daz- 
 zling white. 
 
 Zero gave a whoop and landed up to his 
 waist. Mr. Hensleigh drew breath and 
 followed. Mr. Timbers greeted the lady of 
 the house with a curve on his lips as dry as 
 a pine shaving. 
 
 "Hev ye got the key?" Like most Fair- 
 harbor men, Mr. Timbers spoke very loud.
 
 22 THE WIDOWER 
 
 "I hev, you bet," said Zero proudly. 
 
 "I guess we 'd better carry her in; she 'd 
 flounder," suggested the driver. He threw 
 the reins over the horses' backs and stepped 
 off. 
 
 "I have always waded through my own 
 drifts," said Corona proudly. 
 
 No one of the three men paid the least 
 attention to her remark. At a word from 
 the driver, Mr. Hensleigh stepped forward. 
 The two men picked the woman up. The 
 gentleman's jaw was closed in determina- 
 tion. In the meanwhile Zero and the builder 
 had gone around and unlocked the back 
 door. Mr. Hensleigh did not dare to look 
 at Corona while she put, according to the 
 necessity of the circumstances, her left arm 
 about his neck. But the driver had no 
 such delicacy, for he said : 
 
 "Hold on tight, miss! Don't let your 
 cable slip, or ye '11 be swamped sure." 
 
 Obedient to her orders, her left arm in- 
 creased its pressure, and the widower won- 
 dered if her heart beat as violently as his.
 
 THE WIDOWER 23 
 
 The bright day from the front and back 
 doors met in the dining-room. The house 
 was boarded with heavy shutters, and except 
 for this one avenue of light was a cavern 
 of blackness. The cottage, that was as 
 dainty as a lady's work-basket in summer, 
 looked like a dry goods box in winter. 
 
 "Ye can't go no further," said Zero at 
 the threshold of the little dining-room. 
 It's up to the rail here." But Mr. Tim- 
 bers, the builder, swished into the parlor, 
 relying on his rubber boots. Zero hopped 
 after. The driver went back to blanket his 
 horses, and, being well brought up, shut 
 the back door after him. Behind Corona 
 and her lover was a throat of blackness. 
 They seemed to be swallowed up. Before 
 them the front door, opening directly into 
 the parlor, cast a vivid light. The winter 
 sea looked in strangely. The two stood to- 
 gether in the doorway of the dining-room 
 and peered about. The builder and Zero 
 were busily looking around the parlor for 
 leaks. Their heads were turned. Hens-
 
 24 THE WIDOWER 
 
 leigh was not slow to perceive this. Uncon- 
 sciously, or perhaps with tenderness pre- 
 pense, the visitor drew the mistress of the 
 house toward him; while she, in despair 
 over what seemed to her the utter ruin and 
 desolation of her house, suffered his sympa- 
 thetic caress. 
 
 The builder gave a low whistle. "It 
 leaked in over them winders and down the 
 chimbley. I guess I '11 hev to tear out 
 them frames. I wasn't calculating on no 
 sich hurricane as this." 
 
 "Why doesn't it drain through?" asked 
 Corona, dabbling with the tip of her rubber 
 on the flood that covered the parlor floor. 
 Happily, her straw matting had been taken 
 up when the house was closed. 
 
 "This flooring is as tight as if it was 
 caulked," replied the builder proudly. It 
 seemed to him as if it were a great point, 
 that, having taken in water, the house 
 should hold it. 
 
 "You seem to have been calculating on 
 its raining from below," said Hensleigh
 
 THE WIDOWER 25 
 
 dryly, "or perhaps you expected a tidal 
 wave. Why can't you putty up the seams 
 and put a double coat of paint over? That 
 ought to last and prevent any more leaks," 
 he continued. 
 
 "Thet ain't a bad idea. Let me go out 
 and see." The builder went out on the 
 piazza. Of course, Zero followed. What 
 boy would n't tag after a mechanic ? 
 
 The two were left alone for the first time. 
 Corona thought how clever he was to sug- 
 gest the putty. But he thought, "Now or 
 never." 
 
 This time he asked no questions. He 
 simply took the woman in his arms. 
 
 "It 's no use, Corona," he whispered. 
 "I love you so I can't wait." 
 
 "But, Zero!" she fluttered. 
 
 Now when a woman thinks more about 
 what people will say than about her own 
 feelings, a man may know that she is not 
 unwilling. 
 
 "It sha'n't be called ' Old Maid's Para- 
 dise' any longer, if I can help it," he in-
 
 26 THE WIDOWER 
 
 sisted. "When shall we change the name, 
 
 dear? " 
 
 "Not yet. Oh, Alec, not yet, dear! " 
 "Shall it be the middle of June? 
 
 Quick ! " There was the munching of feet 
 
 on the furry snow. 
 
 " Quick ! They are coming ! " 
 
 " Alec ! Don't yes, then yes ! " 
 
 It was all over in that moment. Mr. 
 
 Timbers returned, tramping heavily. Zero 
 
 followed, swishing over the wet floor like a 
 
 school of herring. 
 
 The woman, as is usual in an embarrass- 
 ing position, was the first to recover her 
 
 self-possession. 
 
 "I '11 leave the whole thing to you, Mr. 
 
 Timbers. Do as you please. My rubber 
 
 leaks, and I '11 have to get out of this." 
 "If ye 'd said that before, ye might have 
 
 saved yer car fare," grunted Mr. Timbers. 
 "Yes, I might, but if I had"- The 
 
 lady did not finish her sentence.
 
 CHAPTER H 
 
 THE WEDDING 
 
 IT was a resplendent morning of the 
 last Saturday of June. Corona awoke and 
 looked around her. Her heart beat as if 
 she were going to her execution at noon; 
 but the sun looked in about the blue and 
 white room as if she were going to Heaven. 
 
 She heard heavy steps upon the stairs. 
 The edge of a tray knocked on the door. 
 Puelvir walked in. Puelvir was Corona's 
 nominal cook and practical duenna. If I 
 may inherit the statement of the original 
 documents, Puelvir was Corona's guide, 
 philosopher, and friend. Puelvir 's face was 
 as long as the boom of a cup defender, and, 
 far from protecting the cup, she allowed 
 her tears to rain copiously into the coffee. 
 Corona observed this bridal expression with 
 dismay.
 
 28 THE WEDDING 
 
 "Dear me, Puelvir, what is the matter 
 with you, this morning?" 
 
 "I I wish you jo boo hoo oy. Oh, 
 me! Oh, me!" wailed Puelvir. "But I 
 don't wish him none," she added viciously. 
 
 "Thank you, Puelvir I am surprised. 
 I thought you would be glad to see me 
 happy." 
 
 Puelvir doused a fist into her eyes. "I 
 hain't no ob bob jection to seein' you 
 happy. But oh, the resk on 't ! I darsn't 
 think of that!" 
 
 Corona turned pale at this, for her own 
 heart echoed the words. 
 
 "Here, take it!" Puelvir plumped the 
 breakfast tray down upon the bed. "It's 
 the last breakfast I '11 be bringing yer." 
 
 "But, Puelvir!" cried Corona, "! 
 thought you were going to stay by me. I 
 couldn't live without you." 
 
 "I hain't seen any evidence of it. I 
 wish I had n't oh, boo hoo had n't 
 turned off the raspberry man for you ! I 'd 
 'a' ben a bride long before you was. Now
 
 THE WEDDING 29 
 
 he 's got that widder with four and six of 
 his own into the bargain and you 've ben 
 an' broke our bargain, and here I be! " 
 
 An appalling vision of being deserted by 
 her housemaid on her wedding-day swept 
 over Corona. She saw herself spending 
 her honeymoon frying cunners and teach- 
 ing Alexander to set the table and wash 
 the dishes. Puelvir stood stern and uncom- 
 promising. 
 
 "I '11 see you through the ceremony, any- 
 how. I suppose ye won't want to see me 
 nor nobody after that. My trunk 's packed. 
 I sot up last night to do it. Why don't ye 
 drink yer coffee? " 
 
 The maid looked down upon her mistress. 
 What did she see? Tears gathering in 
 those dear eyes upon their wedding-day. 
 Puelvir's faithful heart melted before the 
 sight like the sugar in the saucer beneath 
 her tears. 
 
 "Law, Miss Corona, I won't there 
 now! I won't, nohow. My trunk ain't 
 packed, neither. That was a whopper. I
 
 30 THE WEDDING 
 
 would n't be so sneakin' mean. I '11 stick 
 by you. There 's only one thing," said 
 Puelvir, swelling grandly: "Don't you ever 
 ask me to bring his breakfast up to him. 
 I won't do it!" 
 
 "Dear me, Puelvir, I don't think Mr. 
 Hensleigh would ever expect it." Corona 
 blushed. It seemed to her as if Puelvir 
 were very indelicate. "He is not at all 
 spoiled," pleaded the lady. 
 
 " He will be soon enough ! " snapped the 
 maid. 
 
 Then Puelvir, whether from remorse for 
 her own cruelty, or from the tenderness of 
 her own loyalty, took Corona's delicate 
 hand in her red, work-worn fingers, im- 
 printed a resounding kiss upon it, and fled 
 sobbing from the room. 
 
 Corona, much agitated, ate her cold 
 breakfast. When she came to the coffee 
 she found it noticeably salt. 
 
 The door opened and Matthew Launce- 
 lot walked in. Matthew was Corona's dog ; 
 he had acquired a mysterious ability to open
 
 THE WEDDING 31 
 
 doors, which would have been worth fifty 
 dollars a week to him in a variety show. 
 He had practiced on the doors of Paradise, 
 which, when they did n't stick, would n't 
 latch. This habit of his had rather disas- 
 trous effects upon his mistress during the 
 period of her betrothal, and as the little 
 blackrand-tan terrier could under no circum- 
 stances be taught how to shut a door, Mr. 
 Hensleigh had formed the habit of putting 
 chairs against the doors of the parlor when- 
 ever he paid his respects to Corona. 
 
 Matthew and Corona passed each other 
 in the middle of the floor. The one leaped 
 upon the bed, the other shut the door. 
 (This rhythmical remark may be pardoned 
 to the general agitation of the wedding-day, 
 which overpowers even its historian.) Mat- 
 thew was in the habit of having his break- 
 fast upstairs with his mistress; he finished 
 off the rolls, begged in vain for the chops, 
 and called for his usual cup of coffee. 
 
 Corona, as she gave it to him, patted the 
 dog rather wistfully. "You won't desert
 
 32 THE WEDDING 
 
 me, will you, dear?" The dog looked up 
 into her face and shook his head. He was 
 thinking that something was not just right 
 that morning with the coffee. Corona was 
 much comforted, for she had the feeling 
 that she was parting from all her old friends. 
 
 Tom and Susy objected on general prin- 
 ciples to Corona's getting married, but in 
 particular to Corona's being married in 
 Fairharbor. Tom, Susy, and the baby were 
 occupying Corona's only guest room. This 
 room was painted green. Susy averred that 
 this color represented the mental status of 
 the family at that particular time. She 
 never knew decent people before who re- 
 fused to be married from their own home. 
 
 "But this is my home," Corona had 
 argued; and Tom had said, "Let the girl 
 do as she wants, and charge the bills to 
 me." 
 
 Mary Sinuous, an old friend of Corona's 
 maiden days, had torn herself away from 
 her husband in Brooklyn long enough to 
 come to the wedding, and to spend one
 
 THE WEDDING 33 
 
 sleepless night upon the sofa in the parlor. 
 Mary had added to the interest of the last 
 night before Corona's wedding by tumbling 
 off the sofa three times. Perhaps the sofa 
 was a little narrow and somewhat slanting. 
 It had been courted on a good deal during 
 the last few weeks, and the springs were 
 not at their best. And every time that 
 Mary fell, Matthew Launcelot, who had ex- 
 perience with burglars, set up an ungodly 
 barking. This made the baby cry, and 
 Tom say things that percolated through the 
 matched-board cottage. Take it all in all, 
 it was not a comfortable night, and the 
 family was glad to get up. 
 
 The wedding was appointed at one 
 o'clock. The widower's brother, a clergy- 
 man of a celibate disposition, but of un- 
 doubted family loyalty, came from a flour- 
 ishing parish in a distant part of the State 
 to perform the ceremony. These two stayed 
 at the hotel, and presented themselves at 
 intervals with a shamefaced consciousness 
 of inferiority which is characteristic of the
 
 34 THE WEDDING 
 
 masculine gender at such a time. The 
 widower was seen that morning by the 
 neighbors aimlessly taking trips to and fro 
 on the Fairharbor ferry, and looking as 
 pale as a new mainsail. His brother, from 
 time to time, would slap him vigorously 
 upon the back. 
 
 "Heavens, Alec, cheer up!" he would 
 say. "You ought to be used to it by this 
 time. Now if it were I" But the jo- 
 coseness of the clerical gentleman fell as 
 flat as a sinker, and he perceived that it is 
 not good form even for a brother to re- 
 mind a man of his first wedding-day upon 
 the morning of his second. 
 
 But Corona had no other wedding-day to 
 think of. And Susy thought of the guests, 
 while Tom managed the caterer. That col- 
 ored gentleman had arrived from a distin- 
 guished firm in Boston on the early train, 
 and took immediate possession of the house. 
 Consequently, such of the family as were 
 not favored with breakfast in their bed- 
 rooms had to eat it where they could. It
 
 THE WEDDING 35 
 
 should be remembered that the main house 
 was only twenty feet cube. Tom ate his 
 chops on the hogshead cover by the back 
 door. While he was doing this the caterer 
 approached with a face as nearly pale as is 
 possible to a frightened African. 
 
 "I declare, sir, they have forgotten the 
 patties. What shall I do? " 
 
 "What kind of patties? " 
 
 "Chicken, sir." 
 
 "Then telegraph immediately to have 
 them sent right out on the 10.45 by a spe- 
 cial messenger. I never heard of a wed- 
 ding without patties. Have you?" sternly. 
 
 "No," replied the bewildered caterer, "I 
 never have, sir." 
 
 "I don't believe the ceremony would be 
 legal," replied Tom authoritatively. "I 
 cannot have my sister married without pat- 
 ties." 
 
 The caterer was working miracles in the 
 little toy house. The dining-room was nine 
 feet by ten. The caterer had the delicacy 
 not to intimate that this was not a spacious
 
 36 THE WEDDING 
 
 apartment. He made it look ninety by a 
 hundred. 
 
 Puelvir eyed the caterer with scorching 
 distrust, and told him she supposed her 
 silver and doilies were not good enough for 
 him. Matthew Launcelot, on the contrary, 
 took a fancy to the caterer. How far this 
 could be explained by the disappearance of 
 a lobster croquette and two macaroons has 
 never been accurately determined. 
 
 And now the guests began to arrive. 
 They were not very many. They might 
 have been hundreds, but they were com- 
 prised almost within the first ten numerals. 
 This surprising limitation was purely a 
 matter of mathematics. The parlor of Par- 
 adise could not prettily hold more than a 
 dozen people, and Corona would be married 
 in that parlor. 
 
 Mrs. Rowin, Zero's mother, came first. 
 Corona had sent Zero for her with The 
 Lady of Shalott and the buggy. The Lady 
 of Shalott was then tied to the clothes-post, 
 so that no member of the family might be
 
 THE WEDDING 37 
 
 absent from the ceremony. Corona re- 
 quested that the window be open, so that 
 The Lady could look in. Zero followed in 
 his best clothes. He calmly took up his 
 position under the canopy of Cape Ann 
 roses especially prepared for the bride. 
 Tom marched him out of it and deposited 
 him behind the stove, where Zero stood up 
 straight against the wall and upset twenty- 
 four bride's roses and a vase on a bracket 
 that hung too low. 
 
 An old friend of the bride's, known to 
 prehistoric tradition as Effie, drove over 
 from Wolchester with a span, and reflected 
 a pale glory of the world which just saved 
 the occasion. 
 
 Father Morrison, otherwise known as the 
 lobster man, to Susy's silent despair and 
 Puelvir's audible disgust, had received 
 cards for the wedding; but Effie had met 
 him at a housewarming in the cottage some 
 years ago, and asked him to sit by her side 
 upon the sofa. Father Morrison felt that 
 he was the guest of honor.
 
 38 THE WEDDING 
 
 It was a solemn question what to do with 
 Matthew Launcelot. Corona wanted him 
 present, but Alexander, who was not a 
 favorite with the terrier, dryly suggested 
 that he did n't care to be snapped at while 
 he was putting the ring on, and advised 
 that the dog be sequestered. 
 
 "I won't have the critter in the kitchen 
 on a day like this,'* said Puelvir sternly. 
 "The hogshead is covered. Tie him up 
 atop on't. He '11 set there very comfort- 
 able." 
 
 Corona had secret doubts on the subject. 
 But Tom drove a nail up, fastened one end 
 of a rope to it, and the other to the dog's 
 collar, and Matthew Launcelot sullenly ac- 
 cepted this obloquy. 
 
 But Corona lingered upstairs in her room 
 as long as she could. She felt as if she 
 might never again be alone. She wished 
 she had a mother, before whom she could 
 kneel at this supreme moment, and of whose 
 blessing she could be sure! But thoughts 
 like these bring tears, and tears must not 
 come now.
 
 THE WEDDING 39 
 
 Corona threw up the shade, and then 
 opened the window. She did not know it, 
 but she had looked before this like a white 
 ghost. Now the sun touched her with 
 color, and made her human. Before her 
 the bay glittered in the soft breeze. The 
 water looked like ruffled velvet. The ex- 
 panse that once typified the limitless to her 
 mind, seemed contracted beside the vastness 
 that the happy future spread before her 
 imagination. She turned away. She could 
 not bear the sea at that moment. 
 
 Her eyes fell upon her favorite books. 
 There was the Bible which she read every 
 night. There was her inseparable Robert- 
 son, There was her dearest Tennyson and 
 her Shakespeare in ten blue volumes, to 
 match the room. She crossed over and 
 took up her Bible and patted it, and then 
 with an impulsive movement put her cheek 
 against its worn cover. "Dear, dear little 
 room!" she thought. "No matter what 
 the future is, no one can take me away from 
 these old friends."
 
 40 THE WEDDING 
 
 Her sister-in-law had said to her one day, 
 " Have you thought, Co, what it is going to 
 mean to give up your freedom?" As Susy 
 queened it utterly over Tom and over the 
 whole family, this remark had not struck 
 Corona as one of those aphorisms which are 
 born of experience. But now it came back 
 to her. Give up her freedom everything ? 
 Yes! ten thousand times! " 
 
 "Coro! Coro!" Susy's positive voice, 
 softened into a ceremonious whisper, rever- 
 berated up the stairs. The bride started. 
 She forgot to look in the mirror, or she 
 would have seen that her cheeks were as 
 white as her wedding dress. Her time had 
 come! She opened the door. There was 
 a whisk of retreating petticoats, and on the 
 landing, quite by himself, stood Alexander 
 the Conqueror. The man swept his beauti- 
 ful bride with one swift glance. Then an 
 expression of reverence and humility settled 
 upon his face. 
 
 They walked into their own parlor with-
 
 THE WEDDING 41 
 
 out ushers or bridesmaids. The front door, 
 leading directly into the room, was open. 
 The minister faced them solemnly. The 
 sea looked in, like an uninvited guest, that 
 loved the bride too much to stay away. 
 
 Puelvir, dressed in black alpaca, with jet 
 bracelets and lace mitts, and weeping pro- 
 fusely, followed her mistress. The caterer 
 stood in the dining-room door. 
 
 Tom looked from guest to guest about 
 the room, and then glanced apprehensively 
 at his wife. These natural protectors of 
 the bride had made a fearful discovery 
 there were thirteen in the room! Should 
 they speak about it, or not? But Corona 
 and Tom always understood each other with- 
 out talking. Her quick eye had taken it 
 all in. 
 
 " Get in Matthew Launcelot ! He '11 
 make fourteen," she whispered to her bro- 
 ther. But Susy received this proposition 
 with scorn. Meanwhile the minister, with 
 the indifference of his class to heathen 
 superstitions, had noticed nothing. He
 
 42 THE WEDDING 
 
 had a beautiful marriage ceremony of his 
 own, and before anybody realized it he had 
 begun to read it with a deep voice. Tom, 
 who had actually started for the dog, was 
 arrested halfway to the door. The Rev. 
 Mr. Hensleigh's preliminary selection of 
 Scripture verses was dignified and impres- 
 sive. Upon every face in the room there 
 had already settled a serious look. The 
 groom, with trembling fingers, was taking 
 the wedding - ring out of his waistcoat 
 pocket. The bride's heart was tempestu- 
 ously beating, "I will, I will, I will." 
 Could she say it so that anybody could 
 hear? 
 
 At that moment the sound of cowhide 
 boots thundered over the piazza and drowned 
 the clergyman's tones. 
 
 "Hullo!" cried a husky voice, "here's 
 them patties from Boston, Miss Corona, 
 and I want forty cents for bringin' of 'em 
 over on a special trip ! " Alas, it was the 
 local expressman, to whom the caterer's 
 messenger had ignominiously delegated his 
 sacred duty.
 
 TEE WEDDING 43 
 
 The bride's lips twitched. How dread- 
 ful if she should laugh! The minister 
 blushed. An awful hush interrupted that 
 wedding ceremony. Tears of mortification 
 sprang to Susy's eyes. "This comes," she 
 thought, "of being married in a clam 
 shell." But Tom was equal to the occasion. 
 This man of the world marched up to the 
 expressman and took him by the collar and 
 shook him. 
 
 "At peril of your life," he muttered, 
 "don't you speak again until you 're spoken 
 to ! Stand just where you are, and take off 
 your hat! " Tom came back into the parlor 
 serenely. "He makes fourteen," he said 
 aloud; "let him be." 
 
 The embarrassed minister began over 
 again. The expressman carefully deposited 
 the chicken patties in his hat, and stood 
 with his mouth open. The ceremony pro- 
 ceeded bravely. He willed and she willed; 
 the ring was on and they were one. Cor- 
 ona looked very sweet and happy. Why 
 did everybody cry?
 
 44 THE WEDDING 
 
 The minister's grave voice ceased. A 
 delicate spell lay over that unworldly wed- 
 ding. The caterer's eyes were large. "The 
 prettiest I ever saw," he whispered to 
 Puelvir. Nobody else had spoken. 
 
 It now becomes my painful duty to record 
 that sharp upon this sacred silence a fear- 
 ful shriek uprose. This was followed by a 
 spluttering and gurgling such as only the 
 throat of the drowning could emit. 
 
 "It's Matthew Launcelot! Run, Puel- 
 vir!" These were the first audible words 
 uttered by Corona in the capacity of a mar- 
 ried woman. 
 
 Puelvir ran. She left the doors all open. 
 "It's him in the hogshead!" she called 
 back at the top of her lungs. "The crit- 
 ter 's drownin' ! He 's sunk the third time ! " 
 
 The dog, outraged at being shut out from 
 the bosom of his family on such an impor- 
 tant occasion, had overturned the cover of 
 the hogshead and had slipped in. Hang- 
 ing by his rope, he was, in truth, drowning 
 as fast as he conveniently could. Puelvir
 
 THE WEDDING 45 
 
 hauled him out as if he had been a rock 
 cod, untied him, cuffed him on both ears, 
 and let him go. Matthew Launcelot made 
 one dive for the bridal company. He was 
 careful not to rid himself of any superflu- 
 ous water until he got into the parlor, when 
 he shook himself vigorously all over Susy. 
 Then he ran right up to the bride. She 
 stooped to comfort him. The dog put his 
 wet arms around Corona's neck, and she 
 allowed him. Thus all the family were 
 present at the wedding. 
 
 "What are you waiting here for?" said 
 Tom to the expressman half an hour after. 
 
 "Them forty cents," replied the express- 
 man sadly. "I wouldn't 'a' waited, only 
 she told me I must never run up a bill. I 
 wish her joy, anyhow." 
 
 Corona instinctively felt for her pocket- 
 book in her wedding dress. But Alexander 
 Hensleigh, with a grand air of possession, 
 took out a two-dollar bill and handed it to 
 the expressman. 
 
 "This lady's bills are mine now," he said 
 with a new face.
 
 46 THE WEDDING 
 
 "I always like to be among good folks," 
 spoke up Father Morrison at this crisis; 
 "misery loves company." 
 
 But the bride gave her husband a beauti- 
 ful look. She felt as if no one could notice 
 it, and he hoped that no one did. 
 
 Then, when Tom came up and offered her 
 a chicken patty, and called her "Mrs. Hens- 
 leigh," she understood that she was a mar- 
 ried woman.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 THE WEDDING JOURNEY 
 
 THE coach had carried off the wedding 
 guests. Only Zero and Father Morrison 
 were left. 
 
 "I wish ye a pleasant trip," said the lob- 
 ster man, dipping his head like a Cape boat 
 in a ground swell. Father Morrison meant 
 "trip" in the nautical sense, like a trip to 
 the Grand Banks. But the bride laughed 
 gayly as she thanked her old neighbor. She 
 understood the word in the marriage sense. 
 
 " I suppose ye '11 be back in time for 
 herrin'," added the old man. "I 'd rather 
 be miser'ble in good company than happy 
 in bad." Corona hardly knew whether to 
 take this as a prophecy of ill fortune or 
 not. But Father Morrison, feeling that he 
 had given the couple his best benediction, 
 hobbled up the path to his little home.
 
 48 THE WEDDING JOURNEY 
 
 Corona and Alexander had at least one 
 conviction in common. Neither of them be- 
 lieved in the old shoe and the rice business 
 as a necessary conclusion of the wedding 
 ceremony. 
 
 "It is undignified," said Corona senten- 
 tiously, 
 
 "It is dangerous," echoed Alexander sci- 
 entifically. "I once knew a fellow to have 
 a piece of rice lodge in his ear. It was the 
 year before" 
 
 " How dreadful, Alec ! It did n't " - 
 
 "Yes, it did. He became deaf, and all 
 his wife's scolding was lost upon him." 
 
 "And all her dearness, too," Corona an- 
 swered, with a happy look. So it had been 
 decided to reverse the usual order of things. 
 
 "The rest can take the 4.10 train, and 
 we can follow on the 5.03, if we must have 
 a wedding trip, Alec; and we will drive 
 over with The Lady of Shalott and send 
 the baggage ahead by the coach." Thus 
 the lady decided the matter. But further 
 she would take no responsibility. In her
 
 THE WEDDING JOURNEY 49 
 
 heart of hearts she wanted to spend her 
 honeymoon in Paradise, by the great waters, 
 in her own dear home. But her husband 
 could not understand the simplicity of such 
 a wish. He mentioned Niagara; followed 
 this fossil bridal suggestion by a casual hint 
 about Alaska; threw out ominous insinua- 
 tions about San Francisco, Mexico, and New 
 Orleans, and ended by a bold plea for a 
 yachting trip to Cape Breton. Corona's 
 heart was faint at the suggestion of these 
 endless wanderings, and she utterly refused 
 to be told what his plans were. She made 
 only one condition : that he should buy no 
 long-distance tickets in advance. 
 
 Zero stood at The Lady's head. He was 
 to take the ferry over to the station and 
 bring the horse back. His face, usually 
 stolid with the inherited woe of generations 
 of fisher folk, was now expanded to its 
 uttermost expression. Zero wore the smiles 
 of a lifetime; for the chance of a lifetime 
 had been his. Croquettes and patties, ice 
 cream and cake left over, fruits and coffee
 
 60 TEE WEDDING JOURNEY 
 
 and candies had contributed in fabulous 
 quantities to his ecstatic condition. Zero 
 could not have run to a fire; but he had 
 known one day of perfect bliss, and that is 
 more than many wiser than Zero can say. 
 
 Puelvir, with Matthew Launcelot tied to 
 a string, stood upon the little piazza sob- 
 bing. 
 
 "Are you sure you have got everything? " 
 Alexander turned to his bride with the cau- 
 tion of an old traveler. " We may not be 
 back for a long time; possibly not for a 
 month." 
 
 "Perhaps it won't be more than two 
 weeks, dear. How can you leave such a 
 lovely spot? Look out there!" Corona 
 shaded her eyes and glanced out upon the 
 sea. The sun gleamed over the western 
 coast. The whistling buoy moaned faintly 
 from around the Point, as if protesting 
 against her departure. Even then the ori- 
 ginality and the comfort of not doing ex- 
 actly what all married couples do did not 
 dawn upon the man's mind. It had always
 
 THE WEDDING JOURNEY 51 
 
 been a wonder to Corona that newly-wedded 
 couples did not absolutely loathe each other 
 after the regulation journey the nauseat- 
 ing travel, the buffet food, the vulgar 
 hotel. " What a horrible way of beginning 
 life together!" she thought; and now her 
 turn had come, and where were all her 
 ideals? Alexander did not answer, but 
 Matthew did, while Puelvir as if it were 
 the dog who was crying jerked him up 
 violently by the string. 
 
 "You'll be very careful of him," said 
 Corona. "Don't let him out without watch- 
 ing, and always lead him when you go to 
 walk; and look out for the house. You 
 had better stay right here, as we may be 
 back any day. We will telegraph in plenty 
 of time." Corona was used to managing, 
 and this was her house, and Puelvir was 
 hers. 
 
 "I '11 sot right at the kitchen winder 'n' 
 watch for that Christian Union Telegraph 
 boy," wailed Puelvir, "for I sha'n't hev 
 nothin' else to do 'thout it 's runnin' after
 
 52 THE WEDDING JOURNEY 
 
 this here critter. What '11 1 do if he breaks 
 away on me to f oiler after yer? He 's 
 capable on't." 
 
 "At last! " said Hensleigh exultingly, as 
 he placed his bride in the buggy, and took 
 the reins. Corona looked back. There 
 stood her own plain Paradise, and there 
 stood her faithful Puelvir convulsively wav- 
 ing a flopping handkerchief and there 
 was Matthew Launcelot yapping out his 
 broken black-and-tan heart. It seemed to 
 Corona, and her eyes grew suddenly moist, 
 that she had left the whole world behind. 
 Then she turned to her husband. A new 
 world lay before her. The bride brushed 
 his shoulder with her cheek. He answered 
 her not in words. From that moment he 
 could have taken her into the furthest wil- 
 derness, for Paradise was with him. 
 
 When they reached the station Corona 
 noticed that she was the centre of observa- 
 tion. This annoyed her exceedingly; she 
 had never been a bride before. 
 
 "It 's this new traveling-dress," she said.
 
 THE WEDDING JOURNEY 53 
 
 "I ought to have had my own way and 
 worn an old one." She glanced down at 
 the pretty dove-colored cloth skirt. "I'll 
 go and check the baggage, Alec," she said 
 with a burning face, "while you are getting 
 the tickets." The instinct of many inde- 
 pendent years looked out of the bride's 
 eyes; but the instinct of generations of 
 masculine supremacy replied from the eyes 
 of the groom. 
 
 "You stay just where you are," he said 
 quietly; "I am fully capable of checking 
 my wife's baggage in addition to my own." 
 
 "Oh," said Corona, "I never thought of 
 that ! You see I have taken care of myself 
 a good while." 
 
 "You must learn to be taken care of 
 now," her husband said. 
 
 It was with a feeling of mingled anxiety 
 and relief that Corona settled back into her 
 seat. The car was warm, and Alexander 
 devotedly helped her off with her pretty 
 jacket and hung it upon the rack. The 
 train moved off slowly, and Corona looked
 
 54 THE WEDDING JOURNEY 
 
 out of the southern window, dreamily watch- 
 ing for the last view of the harbor and her 
 little home. 
 
 At that moment there was a shriek at the 
 upper end of the car, and an extraordinary 
 commotion seemed to have set in among the 
 passengers. The brakeman was in violent 
 altercation with somebody. 
 
 " Here, you ! Stop there ! Hi ! Catch 
 him ! Get off ! You've no business aboard ! " 
 
 "It's one of the Fairharbor drunkards. 
 Poor fellow ! " sighed Corona. 
 
 "Mad dog!" came the startling cry. 
 Everybody jumped to his feet. Hensleigh 
 threw himself in an attitude of protection 
 before his wife. A black shadow scurried 
 down the aisle. This was followed by a 
 beardless brakeman and the conductor of 
 the white mustache. Past the terrified pas- 
 sengers, skillfully eluding his pursuers, 
 darting under the arms of the infuriated 
 husband, a little black-and-tan figure leaped 
 sprang upon the bride, all over her beau- 
 tiful dress, and laid his head upon her deli-
 
 THE WEDDING JOURNEY 55 
 
 cate silk blouse. It was Matthew Launce- 
 lot. 
 
 "The d dog!" said Hensleigh set- 
 tling back with a groan. 
 
 "You dear thing!" cried Corona, unty- 
 ing the piece of chewed -off rope from the 
 terrier's collar. "What a hard time you 've 
 had ! How glad I am to see you ! " 
 
 "I'm not," said Hensleigh brutally, "I 
 wish he were in at home ! " 
 
 "So he's yours, Miss" said the con- 
 ductor, nodding to his well-remembered 
 passenger. 
 
 "This is Mrs. Hensleigh," interrupted 
 Alexander with an air of great offense. 
 
 "Beg pardon," said the conductor. "I 
 wish you well, I 'm sure; it isn't usual to 
 take 'em on such trips. Some of the pas- 
 sengers got the idea he 's mad." 
 
 "I can heave him over the Cut!" cried 
 the brakeman. 
 
 "You'll heave me over too!" flashed 
 Corona. She clasped Matthew Launcelot 
 firmly to her heart.
 
 56 THE WEDDING JOURNEY 
 
 "Put him off!" came a shout from the 
 other end of the car. Now the object of 
 all this commotion was quite indifferent to 
 it, but busily divided his tune between kiss- 
 ing his mistress and snarling at Mr. Hens- 
 leigh and the brakeman. 
 
 "This is unbearable! " muttered Alexan- 
 der between his teeth. "No hotel in the 
 land would take a dog like this ! " 
 
 "It is too bad," said Corona soothingly. 
 "What shall we do? Of course, we can't 
 travel with him." 
 
 "Perhaps they '11 take him in at Barker's. 
 I know them pretty well, and we can send 
 him back by express to-morrow." 
 
 "By no means!" cried Corona. "They 
 put them in dungeons down in the base- 
 ment. Matthew would die, and you know 
 he can't bear an expressman. I don't see 
 any way but that we '11 have to get off at 
 West Fairharbor and take him home." 
 
 "Well," sighed the bridegroom patiently, 
 "it 's asking a good deal of a fellow; but I 
 suppose we can take the late train."
 
 THE WEDDING JOURNEY 57 
 
 "Here you are, then!" cried the brake- 
 man. 
 
 "I 'm very sorry," said the. conductor. 
 
 An audible sigh of relief arose from the 
 passengers as this bridal party prepared to 
 leave the train. Hensleigh's expression 
 was a cross between humiliation and fury. 
 But Corona and Matthew Launcelot looked 
 perfectly contented. 
 
 The only inhabitant of West Fairharbor 
 seemed to be the station-master, who re- 
 garded the wedding party sternly. Corona, 
 forgetting that she had a husband, marched 
 up to the man and confidingly said : 
 
 "I suppose the next train will take us 
 back in half an hour? " 
 
 "None don't stop here fur two hours, 
 mum; I 've got to go home to supper," was 
 the grim reply; and deigning to take no 
 further notice of the passengers, the agent 
 locked the station and lounged away. Co- 
 rona and Alexander looked at each other, 
 and then at Matthew Launcelot. 
 
 "I should think you might know your
 
 58 THE WEDDING JOURNEY 
 
 own country," began Hensleigh impatiently, 
 and then stopped, biting his lip, for he 
 remembered that he was a bridegroom. 
 
 "I 'm sorry," said Corona humbly. She 
 bent over and kissed Matthew, as if that 
 helped the matter. She dropped upon the 
 baggage truck, looking very much troubled. 
 
 Before her an inlet of the harbor began 
 to be gilded in the setting sun. It was a 
 tortuous stream that connected two bays, 
 and which made an island of Fairharbor 
 and the Cape. Great stretches of marsh 
 were disappearing before the rising tide. 
 Green hummocks were nodding their hair 
 for the last time before they went under for 
 the night. Near the station was an inlet to 
 an inlet; but the harbor was out of sight 
 three miles and more away to the south. 
 
 "I suppose we can camp here," said 
 Alexander grimly. "This truck, a settee, 
 and a flour barrel are about all the assets of 
 the situation. The flour barrel seems to be 
 empty, and to save any further complica- 
 tions I move we put the dog in there and 
 head him up."
 
 THE WEDDING JOURNEY 59 
 
 But Matthew Launcelot was not so easily 
 to be disposed of. He had brought them 
 into this predicament; he had spoiled the 
 wedding- journey. The position was indeed 
 a serious one. But it was Matthew's good 
 luck to bring them out. He began to bark 
 furiously, and ran down through a pine 
 grove toward the shore. Corona followed, 
 and her husband, with a sardonic expres- 
 sion of the features, brought up the rear 
 leisurely. The bridal procession arrived at 
 the beach. Hensleigh suggested that all 
 that was needed was a band, and began to 
 whistle a few bars from "Lohengrin." 
 
 But Matthew had made a momentous dis- 
 covery. It was nothing less than a man 
 and a dory. 
 
 "Stop!" cried Corona. "Where are 
 you going? " 
 
 "I'm goin' to Twenty Poun' Island as 
 soon as I can shove her off." 
 
 Hensleigh opened his mouth to speak, 
 but Corona went on with beautiful uncon- 
 sciousness :
 
 60 THE WEDDING JOURNEY 
 
 "Won't you take us? There are only 
 three I mean two." 
 
 The fisherman looked at the group suspi- 
 ciously, and grudgingly said : 
 
 "Well, I mought, if ye '11 leave the dog 
 behind." 
 
 "Sensible man! " This was Hensleigh's 
 first chance to speak, and he made the most 
 of it. Then, gently putting his wife to one 
 side, he closed a whispered bargain with 
 the owner of the dory. 
 
 "He won't take us any further than the 
 Island, and only on condition that you put 
 the dog in the stern locker and sit on him," 
 explained Hensleigh. "And how in thun- 
 der are we to get home from there? " 
 
 " Oh, delightful ! " cried Corona. " Why, 
 I know every fisherman in the harbor, and 
 any of them will take us over. They '11 be 
 just coming home from their traps." 
 
 "I'd rather they wouldn't all see us," 
 suggested Alexander, helping his wife in 
 from the sedgy bank; "I do hope it won't 
 get out in the papers."
 
 THE WEDDING JOURNEY 61 
 
 The bride and groom sat on the thwart 
 together. Except for the rising of the tide, 
 and for the eddying currents, the water was 
 motionless. They might just as well have 
 been alone, for the fisherman rowed with 
 his body half and his head wholly turned 
 away. He was not thinking of his passen- 
 gers. He was intent upon the straightest 
 channel. 
 
 And now the outline of the western hills 
 grew purple and black, and now a hundred 
 windows of the city ahead reflected the de- 
 parting glory of the sun with a brilliance 
 that dazzled and elated at once. Then a 
 turn in the channel, and the passengers in 
 the dory were face to face with the gorgeous 
 tints that the clouds above the setting sun 
 threw upon the vitreous surface of the mo- 
 tionless water. Peace rested upon sea and 
 land. Even the dog was awed into silence. 
 All the irritation and disappointment were 
 fanned away from the hearts of these two 
 people who loved each other better than all 
 the world. They sat together with hands
 
 62 THE WEDDING JOURXK)' 
 
 clasped not talking, looking into each 
 other's eyes, and into the face of the purple 
 horizon. It occurred to Corona that this 
 bridal trip was typical of the married life 
 before her: plenty of little things moving 
 in the current with the big ones little 
 troubles, little disappointments, little frets, 
 but all borne how easily ! upon the 
 great sea of love. They were startled by 
 the grating of the keel. 
 
 "Here you are! Out with you!" The 
 fisherman held his dory firmly with his oar. 
 
 There was another dory pulled up on the 
 beach. It was an old black boat with a 
 green streak. 
 
 "Why, that's Father Morrison!" ob- 
 served Corona suddenly. "He 's leaving 
 lobsters at the lighthouse." 
 
 "Thank God! " said Hensleigh devoutly. 
 " I begin to see my way clear for the first 
 time since we have started on our wedding 
 journey. I believe we can catch the nine 
 o'clock train, after all." 
 
 Corona made no reply.
 
 THE WEDDING JOURNEY 63 
 
 Father Morrison came down from the 
 lighthouse, and with the serenity of his 
 class, accepted the appearance of the bride 
 and groom stranded on Twenty Pound 
 Island with an unpopular dog as a matter 
 of course. He took them aboard his lob- 
 ster boat. By this time the bride's travel- 
 ing-dress was so far on the road to ruin that 
 she looked upon the lobsters in the bottom 
 of the boat with indifference. It was now 
 growing dusk. Hensleigh, spying a dry 
 spot, tried to sit in the bow, but Father 
 Morrison waved him sternly back : 
 
 "You go set along side o' her. That's 
 where you belong." Hensleigh meekly 
 obeyed, for a captain is master, even in a 
 lobster dory. 
 
 The old man rowed them strongly out 
 into the harbor. He pulled his ash oars 
 with the might that old age allows only to 
 fisher folk. It was darkening fast. The 
 square-cut lines of Paradise grew nearer 
 and fainter at the same time. There was 
 a light in the kitchen window, and Corona
 
 64 THE WEDDING JOURNEY 
 
 thought that she could detect figures on the 
 piazza. 
 
 Father Morrison rested on his oars, and 
 with an oratorical cough raised himself to 
 his feet. 
 
 "I wish ye," he began solemnly, "fair 
 winds and a pleasant harbor." 
 
 Hensleigh took off his hat, and said, 
 "Amen!" 
 
 "Thank you, dear Father Morrison," 
 echoed Corona softly. 
 
 But, as usual, Matthew Launcelot had 
 the last word. A fearful howl arose from 
 between the rower's feet. The dog leaped 
 into Corona's lap. A live, green lobster 
 followed. 
 
 "He's got him by the leg!" cried Co- 
 rona. "Father Morrison, he '11 kill him." 
 
 "There ! There ! " said Father Morrison, 
 "I '11 see to him," and he wrenched the 
 jaws of the lobster asunder as if they had 
 been a clothes-pin. Matthew, with a yell 
 of agony, leaped into the water and swam 
 ashore. The boat grated on the rocks.
 
 THE WEDDING JOURNEY 65 
 
 As the bridal couple clambered up the 
 cliff, they were met by Puelvir, Zero, the 
 expressman, and a policeman. 
 
 "Mercy on us!" cried Puelvir. "It's 
 him! It 's him! I 've had the whole town 
 huntin' after the critter And Lord have 
 mercy on us, it 's them! " 
 
 "You can go, and I'm much obleeged," 
 said Puelvir loftily to the expressman and 
 policeman. "My folks have got home, and 
 I don't need any more of you. The crit- 
 ter 's here! " 
 
 If there were a trifling ambiguity in Puel- 
 vir 's last substantive, nobody noticed it. 
 But Corona leaned dependently upon her 
 husband's arm for the first time since they 
 had been married. 
 
 "I'm so glad to get home," she said, 
 "are n't you? And, Puelvir, dear, couldn't 
 you get us a little supper? " 
 
 They sat on the piazza to rest; Puelvir 
 in the kitchen was singing a joyous alto. 
 She sang :
 
 66 THE WEDDING JOURNEY 
 
 " Safe, safe at home, 
 No more to roam ; 
 Safe, safe at home." 
 
 The odor of a delicious supper plainly 
 one of Puelvir's masterpieces crept around 
 the side of the house. 
 
 The stars came out, and the harbor lan- 
 terns laughed across the bay. And then 
 the red flash-light from the Point turned its 
 greeting eye and welcomed them. Every- 
 thing seemed to have expected them. Co- 
 rona was very happy. 
 
 "It wasn't such a bad wedding trip, 
 after all, was it, dear?" she ventured. 
 
 "N-no-o," doubtfully answered honest 
 Alexander. He was still thinking of Nia- 
 gara, Mexico, Alaska, Cape Breton, and the 
 nine o'clock train. 
 
 "Isn't this better than a hot, stuffy 
 hotel?" pleaded Corona again, her sweet 
 breath fanning his beard. 
 
 And now a cool wave of salt air swept 
 over Paradise, and the waves sang on the 
 rocks at their feet. The supper bell rang.
 
 THE WEDDING JOURNEY 67 
 
 "I don't know but you are right, dear," 
 said Hensleigh, with a sigh of content. 
 Hand in hand the two went in and closed 
 the door.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE FIRST MISUNDERSTANDING 
 
 ALEXANDER was fishing for cunners, 
 an exciting occupation with which he digni- 
 fied his honeymoon. He dangled his legs 
 over the edge of the cliff, lazily smoking a 
 briarwood. His straw hat was tipped back 
 from his forehead, and he was watching 
 with a fisherman's intentness the tidal eddy 
 beneath him. Corona sat by his side mak- 
 ing believe that she was very happy. In 
 point of fact, there was nothing she hated 
 so much as fishing in the hot sun. But the 
 three weeks' wife had already learned that 
 happiness consisted in doing what Alexan- 
 der liked. Hensleigh, who knew next to 
 nothing about the natural history of the 
 Fairharbor cunner, insisted that they never 
 bit before twelve o'clock. 
 
 "I have never noticed that they bit at
 
 THE FIRST MISUNDERSTANDING 69 
 
 all," said Corona, "and I have lived here 
 four summers." The bride looked cool and 
 beautiful in her white flannel boating-dress, 
 as she happily jeered at her husband's 
 efforts. 
 
 But Alexander did not answer. He gave 
 his wife a debonair glance. The last bite 
 had taken his bait. With a swish of jaunty 
 superiority he brought his line in and sacri- 
 ficed another rock snail. 
 
 These two people were as happy as they 
 looked. Hensleigh had grown ten years 
 younger. It was the lover of the old days 
 come back. And Corona ah, but Co- 
 rona ! Who can put into words that ineffa- 
 ble glory which looks from the eyes of a 
 rapturous, new-made wife? She was like 
 a rose just burst into bloom. When mar- 
 riage overtakes people past the first enthu- 
 siasm of youth they are apt to be happier 
 than younger people know how to be. Hap- 
 piness is a fine art which only experience 
 can teach us how to acquire. Most of us 
 dabble at it. A few master it.
 
 70 THE FIRST MISUNDERSTANDING 
 
 Fairharbor was nothing if not accommo- 
 dating. It was one of the pleasant pecu- 
 liarities of that place that the United States 
 mail was delivered on the rocks and beaches. 
 Corona's particular letter-carrier was very 
 devoted to her. On one occasion, while she 
 was taking a surf bath, he was courteous 
 enough to deliver her letters to her in the 
 water. He was late this morning, and did 
 not go up to the house, but took a short cut 
 across the rocks to them, and hurried by. 
 Hensleigh did not even look up. He had 
 refused since he had been married even to 
 read the morning papers. He went on con- 
 tentedly trying to murder fish, while Corona 
 read her letters and his own too. 
 
 He was suddenly diverted from his ec- 
 static occupation by a long sigh. 
 
 "Oh, dear," cried Corona, "it's too 
 bad!" 
 
 " What 's the matter, dear? " 
 "Why, I 've got to go in to Boston." 
 Hensleigh's lips fairly turned pale. He 
 dropped his pole. "In to Boston!'" he
 
 THE FIRST MISUNDERSTANDING 71 
 
 exclaimed. If she had said Calcutta he could 
 not have thrown more emphasis into these 
 two words such a change had Paradise 
 wrought upon the nature of the erstwhile 
 traveling bridegroom. "Why, Corona! 
 When I magnanimously gave up Alaska, 
 Niagara, Cape Breton, and Mexico, I didn't 
 expect to be yanked out of my home to go 
 to Boston!" 
 
 "Oh, but you haven't got to go," said 
 Corona sweetly. "I can attend to it my- 
 self. I always have." 
 
 "Do you mean to say that you would go 
 off and leave me here alone with with 
 Matthew Launcelot, and we not yet married 
 four weeks?" demanded the husband with 
 a real constraint. 
 
 "Why, Alec, love, I don't see of what 
 possible use you can be. It 's about the 
 insurance. It has been overdue two weeks, 
 and just because I was married I forgot all 
 about it." 
 
 "You sound," observed her husband 
 dryly, "as if you wish you hadn't been.
 
 72 THE FIRST MISUNDERSTANDING 
 
 And it does n't seeui to occur to you that, 
 having taken a husband, it is natural for 
 him to look out for your business affairs. 
 I have insured property before in my life." 
 He stood up, viciously flung out his line, 
 and immediately landed a sculpin. 
 
 Corona screamed a feminine, horror- 
 stricken shriek. Matthew Launcelot, hear- 
 ing the commotion, ran out of the house to 
 defend his mistress. Perceiving the sculpin, 
 he turned his undivided attention to that 
 subject. 
 
 Hensleigh, with a look of unutterable dis- 
 gust, threw down his pole and stalked into 
 the house. Corona looked after him in 
 genuine astonishment. She felt suddenly 
 very faint. What did this mean? What 
 had she done? Only three weeks married, 
 and he turned his back upon her! There 
 was nothing else for the woman to do. She 
 followed him anxiously. 
 
 When she came in she found him in the 
 parlor officiously reading "Les Miserables." 
 It was a big, red, aggressive-looking copy,
 
 THE FIRST MISUNDERSTANDING 73 
 
 and he put it down with some noise when 
 she entered. 
 
 "Alec, dear" she began. 
 
 "What train do you take?" he inter- 
 rupted austerely. 
 
 "I I don't know," she trembled. 
 "The agent says it must be attended to 
 right away, and I thought I might find 
 Tom " 
 
 " Tom ! " exploded the husband. " What 
 in the world do you want of Tom? " 
 
 "I don't know," faltered Corona. "I 
 thought he always has" She broke 
 off, confused beneath her husband's steady 
 glance. 
 
 "Do you think, Corona, that your hus- 
 band is capable of doing an elemental piece 
 of business or not? Is he to be of orna- 
 ment, or of use? We might as well have 
 it settled right now." 
 
 Corona looked frightened. 
 
 "I did n't mean " she said. "I 've 
 always done these things. I like to do 
 them, too," she added in a stronger voice. 
 "I enjoy looking out for myself."
 
 74 THE FIRST MISUNDERSTANDING 
 
 " Does it ever occur to you that I might 
 enjoy looking out for you? " Hensleigh got 
 up and gazed out of the window. "Be- 
 sides," he added, "a man has some feeling 
 on such a subject." 
 
 Corona stared at him, puzzled. So had 
 she some feeling about it. When a man's 
 traditions and a woman's independence 
 come in contact, what is to be done? 
 
 Alexander sat down at his table and be- 
 gan to write. 
 
 "How long did your policy run? " he in- 
 quired in a methodical voice. 
 
 "Three years." 
 
 "What premium?" 
 
 Now Corona never in her life had been 
 able to remember what was the premium 
 and which was the policy. She would have 
 died rather than let Alexander know this 
 just then. 
 
 "Let me see," she returned evasively. 
 "The house cost me five hundred dollars; 
 the furniture, one hundred. House, furni- 
 ture, clothes, and all I insured them for 
 six hundred and fifty."
 
 THE FIRST MISUNDERSTANDING To 
 
 "What is the company?" came the cool 
 rejoinder. 
 
 "The Mutual Frying Pan and Fire Insu- 
 rance Company. It 's in the same building, 
 you remember, with my brokers, Jump & 
 Jiggles." 
 
 By the time she had finished her explana- 
 tion, Hensleigh began to read her the fol- 
 lowing letter : 
 
 GENERAL AGENT MUTUAL FRYING PAN 
 
 AND FIRE INS. Co. : 
 
 Sir : In reply to yours of the inst. 
 
 addressed to my wife, Mrs. Corona Hens- 
 leigh, I inclose my check for amount due 
 you for a renewal of policy for a term of 
 three years. Hold insurance from receipt 
 of this, and forward policy at your earliest 
 convenience to 
 
 Yours truly, 
 
 ALEXANDER HENSLEIGH. 
 
 "There," he said, "that's all that 's ne- 
 cessary to do."
 
 76 THE FIRST MISUNDERSTANDING 
 
 "But I always have gone to Boston," in- 
 sisted Corona pugnaciously. 
 
 "You have n't always been married, 
 though." 
 
 There was something a little peremptory 
 in Hensleigh's tone, which jarred upon his 
 wife. A man never understands why a 
 woman resents masterfulness at one time 
 and likes it at another. If a tramp had 
 come in and frightened her, and Alexander 
 had kicked him into the harbor, she would 
 have adored this evidence of power. But 
 the superior and patronizing manner with 
 which her husband drew that check was 
 another matter. Corona did not like it, 
 and she showed that she did not. 
 
 "Very well," she said coldly. "If you 
 don't wish me to go I certainly shall not." 
 
 "Do as you please," he replied shortly. 
 He took up " Les Miserables," and with an 
 air of great significance he fastened his eyes 
 upon the title. 
 
 Corona turned sadly away. She went 
 out on the piazza and looked at the harbor
 
 THE FIRST MISUNDERSTANDING 77 
 
 for comfort. A cloud had swept over the 
 hot, noon sky, and the water regarded her 
 darkly. She called Matthew Launcelot. 
 This member of the family came up drag- 
 ging the mutilated sculpin, which he pro- 
 ceeded to bury in the folds of her white 
 dress. With an exclamation of annoyance 
 Corona fled to the kitchen. Puelvir was 
 ironing one of Alexander's outing - shirts, 
 and her temper and the thermometer stood 
 at about a hundred and sixteen. 
 
 "This ain't no place fur you," began 
 Puelvir sharply. " You 'd better go to him. 
 I ain't no time to be stirrin' up desserts fur 
 him to-day. You send him out berryin'. 
 It 's about all he 's good fur." 
 
 Corona retreated in despair. There was 
 no one left but her husband. She went 
 through the dining-room, where she had 
 received her first kiss, and, as she advanced, 
 her heart grew warmer. She softly opened 
 the parlor door. He did not look up from 
 his book. Nevertheless, Corona was con- 
 vinced that he had not been reading. She
 
 78 THE FIRST MISUNDERSTANDING 
 
 stole up behind him, put her arms about his 
 neck, and looked over his shoulder. "Les 
 Miserables " was upside down. 
 
 "Let me have the letter, dear. I '11 run 
 out and mail it. I won't go to Boston. I 
 don't think there is any real need of it." 
 
 "Oh, come here!" cried Alexander rap- 
 turously. "Les Miserables" performed a 
 double somersault and landed upon the 
 piazza. Matthew Launcelot took the red 
 book to be another kind of sculpin, and 
 began viciously to tear it to pieces. And 
 the bride where was she ? 
 
 In a few minutes two figures stole out 
 of Paradise, hand in hand. Alexander car- 
 ried a little Indian basket, and Corona 
 carried the letter. When the dinner-bell 
 called them home their eyes eagerly told 
 each other that they had brought back 
 something sweeter than the wild strawber- 
 ries which were offered to Puelvir as an 
 ironing-day dessert. 
 
 The day passed pleasantly. Corona and
 
 THE FIRST MISUNDERSTANDING 79 
 
 Alexander were very happy. After supper, 
 as usual, Hensleigh lighted a cigar. It had 
 come up a little easterly and threatened 
 rain, and after a few ineffectual attempts 
 to stay on the piazza, Alexander came into 
 the house. Corona, who was sitting at the 
 window, greeted him joyously. But when 
 she saw his cigar her bright face fell. 
 
 " Why, Alec, dear, you 're not smoking, 
 are you to-night? " 
 
 "Great Scott! child, why in thunder 
 shouldn't I smoke to-night?" 
 
 "Why, don't you remember the insur- 
 ance?" 
 
 "Well, what about the insurance? I 
 thought we had settled that little matter." 
 
 "But, my dear, it 's overdue." 
 
 "Over fiddlesticks!" exclaimed Hens- 
 leigh with a little, contemptuous smile. 
 
 "Don't be rude." Corona arose with 
 some dignity. 
 
 "I won't," he replied quickly, "if you 're 
 not silly." She flushed at the word. 
 
 "But don't you see, if the house burns 
 down to-night, I sha'n't get a cent for it?"
 
 80 THE FIRST MISUNDERSTANDING 
 
 "So? "he said, puffing peacefully. His 
 equanimity and her anxiety stung Corona. 
 
 "Let me see," he said quietly, dropping 
 his ashes on the floor, "this insurance has 
 been two weeks overdue, and I have smoked 
 every day in this house. I do not see any 
 reason why I should give it up now." 
 
 "I see every reason," she said severely. 
 "I didn't know it before. It would break 
 my heart to lose this house. I love it very 
 dearly." 
 
 "You love it more than you do me," ob- 
 served the husband chillingly. 
 
 "No," she returned, "I love it more than 
 I do your tobacco." 
 
 In a quiet, aggravating way Hensleigh 
 kept on smoking. He looked at her cheer- 
 fully, as much as to say, "Poor girl, you 're 
 cracked a little on the subject, and I 'm 
 sorry for you." Corona stood for a moment 
 in anxious thought, and then with set lips 
 walked up to his chair and stood over him. 
 
 "Are you going to keep on smoking, 
 Alec?"
 
 THE FIRST MISUNDERSTANDING 81 
 
 "So it seems, my dear." 
 
 " I must beg you I must ask you, not 
 to do it until the new policy is taken out. 
 It is n't safe. It 's very dangerous." 
 
 Hensleigh looked up at his wife quizzi- 
 cally. 
 
 "Whose house is this?" he asked. 
 
 "Why, mine!" said Corona. 
 
 "Ah! I thought it was ours." With- 
 out another word Hensleigh went out, shut 
 the door, stood for a moment irresolute on 
 the piazza, and then disappeared in the 
 growing darkness. His feet crunched on 
 the crisp grass. There had been a three 
 weeks' Fairharbor drought, and everything 
 was very dry. 
 
 Corona dropped on the sofa, stunned. 
 Oh, what had happened? Where had he 
 gone? Would he ever come back? It 
 seemed to the bride as if her husband had 
 gone out of her life forever. Too proud to 
 follow him, too heartbroken to stay behind, 
 she wandered out wretchedly and uncer- 
 tainly upon the rocks. The wind was ris-
 
 82 THE FIRST MISUNDERSTANDING 
 
 ing, and the incoming tide dashed high. 
 She put up her hands and found her cheeks 
 wet. "It 's the spray," she thought. But 
 it was not the spray. 
 
 She could no longer hide her feeling 
 from herself. She threw herself down upon 
 the rock and cried as if she would cry her 
 life out. Not fifty feet away sat her hus- 
 band, smoking desperately. The wind car- 
 ried the smoke the other way. The cliff 
 towered between the two. It might have 
 been the width of the world. 
 
 Suddenly shrill sounds came from the 
 house. Neither of these two miserable peo- 
 ple paid any attention to them. It was 
 only Matthew. Perhaps the expressman 
 had come. But human shrieks now broke 
 into the canine outcries. Puelvir began to 
 call frantically. 
 
 "Fire! Fire! Miss Corona, yer house 
 is afire!" It didn't occur to Puelvir to 
 call the master of the house. 
 
 Simultaneously with these words the 
 smell of something burning rushed over the
 
 THE FIRST MISUNDERSTANDING 83 
 
 rocks. Corona ran; but Hensleigh ran, 
 too ; and he got there first. 
 
 "Paradise is afire!" cried Puelvir. 
 "Somebody 's sot it. The piazza 's burnin' 
 up!" She was vigorously emptying the 
 contents of the parlor flower vases upon the 
 fire. Hensleigh stooped and looked. A 
 horrible conviction forced itself upon him 
 that a spark from his cigar had started the 
 dry grass into a brisk flame. There was no 
 denying the fact. Paradise uninsured 
 Paradise was in real danger. 
 
 "Water! " he cried. "No, I want a 
 broom ! " 
 
 "Broom! " said Puelvir scornfully. 
 "What can a man do with a broom?" She 
 meant to give him what she thought best; 
 and she did; for while he was crawling 
 under to beat the fire out with a piece of 
 planking that he found there, Puelvir emp- 
 tied two pails of hogshead water through 
 the broad cracks of the piazza. This, and 
 Hensleigh 's plank, successfully extinguished 
 the blaze. But it also extinguished him.
 
 84 THE FIRST MISUNDERSTANDING 
 
 He crawled out meekly, dripping from 
 head to foot. Corona met him, trembling 
 violently. 
 
 "Is it out?" she gasped, "all out?" 
 
 "I should think it ought to be." 
 
 "Thank God!" interpolated Corona. 
 
 "Feel of me! " he answered wetly. 
 
 But Puelvir was not satisfied. She had 
 brought two more pailfuls of water, and she 
 now energetically emptied them lengthways 
 over the piazza. This time the flood caught 
 Hensleigh in the ankles as he was coming 
 up the steps. 
 
 "Oh, you poor fellow!" cried Corona. 
 "Let me get you some dry things." 
 
 This wifely exhibition of tenderness, 
 which he had not at all deserved, or ex- 
 pected, broke down what little obstinacy 
 Puelvir 's hydropathic treatment had left in 
 Alexander. Even a bulldog is conquered 
 by a pail of water, and Hensleigh was a 
 gentleman. 
 
 "You poor darling!" Forgetting that 
 he was dripping he took his wife in his
 
 THE FIRST MISUNDERSTANDING 85 
 
 arms. "I am so sorry! You were per- 
 fectly right, and I was entirely wrong. 
 I '11 I '11 never smoke again " 
 
 "Until the house is insured," interrupted 
 Corona archly. 
 
 " Well ah yes, " admitted Alexander. 
 
 "And that will be to-morrow morning." 
 
 They laughed and kissed. Her fluffy, 
 light evening dress lay contentedly in his 
 soaked, corduroy embrace. 
 
 "This must never happen again," he said 
 after a damp, but happy silence. "Love 
 is too precious, and marriage is too sacred." 
 
 "It was dreadful!" 
 
 "It was blasphemy!" he cried; "and 
 we '11 promise by this by this and this 
 that it shall never happen again." 
 
 "It never shall," said Corona solemnly. 
 But in her heart of hearts she wondered if 
 it ever would.
 
 1 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 DEEP-SEA FISHING 
 
 THE memory of that brief, but what 
 might have proved a serious disagreement, 
 cast a spell of tenderness upon the two mar- 
 ried lovers. Each made it a point to yield 
 to the other until the only one in Paradise 
 who had a will of her own was Puelvir. 
 
 "Don't you want to take a walk to 
 Grace's Cove? " 
 
 "Not unless you want to, dear." 
 
 "But I don't care to unless you do." 
 
 "It 's just as you say." 
 
 So like two stupid angels, they would 
 stand and devour each other with tender, 
 happy glances, having brought action to a 
 disinterested deadlock, that seems insupport- 
 able to the world which has passed through 
 such married nonsense, and which is an in- 
 dispensable condition to those just joined in 
 the holy toils of matrimony.
 
 DEEP-SEA FISH IX G 87 
 
 Corona would not eat strawberries un- 
 less Alexander picked out the largest ones 
 for himself; and Alexander absolutely re- 
 fused to select the giant berries unless she 
 promised on her wedding ring to eat them. 
 Ah, if those little idiocies, at which the 
 world guffaws, only because it associates 
 them with the honeymoon, would but last 
 through married life, then we should con- 
 sider them tha expression of the greatest 
 wisdom possible to poor humanity. 
 
 They were standing together, Corona 
 leaning on her husband's shoulder, saying 
 good-night, as they always did, to the red 
 flash-light on the Point, the friend that un- 
 derstood them better than any other, when 
 Alexander said, without any apparent ef- 
 fort : - 
 
 "I'm going out fishing to-morrow, and 
 expect to start about five. I will slip out 
 without waking anybody up." 
 
 In reality, Alexander had dreaded to 
 give this information, very much as a boy 
 is reluctant to explain to his well-armed
 
 88 DEEP- SEA FISHING 
 
 father obvious discrepancies in his speech 
 and conduct. With the wiliness of a ser- 
 pent, the bridegroom had chosen this par- 
 ticular time so that in the darkness of the 
 night their mutual emotions might be invisi- 
 ble to each other. 
 
 Corona's only answer was to let her arm 
 drop gently from the culprit's shoulder. 
 But to the man, her silence was as eloquent 
 as a bombardment. 
 
 "You see," he went on with hollow cheer- 
 fulness, "I've engaged Father Morrison, 
 and as soon as the traps are drawn, we are 
 going to start right out with the Flash, so 
 as to be on the grounds " 
 
 "The Flash!" interrupted Corona in- 
 credulously. "Why, she capsized with 
 Zero and three boys four years ago. Fa- 
 ther Morrison himself rowed out and picked 
 them up. Three clung to the bottom and one 
 was caught in the trap. It took two hours 
 to resuscitate him " Corona stopped 
 only to gain breath. She continued with 
 staccato distinctness. "Then two boarders
 
 DEEP-SEA FISHING 89 
 
 took the Flash out the next year, and she 
 went over in a squall. The next " But 
 Hensleigh interrupted. 
 
 "Probably they did n't know how to tack, 
 or drop their canvas." 
 
 "No," said Corona severely. "The hal- 
 yards got tangled. The next year the Flash 
 went out with a fishing party, got caught in 
 the fog, and was n't heard of for three days. 
 There were two tugs looking for her all of 
 the time, and one was nearly run down." 
 
 " But that was n't the fault of the 
 Flash," observed Alexander desperately. 
 
 "No?" questioned Corona with infinite 
 sarcasm. Then she melted. "I I can- 
 not I simply cannot stand your going in 
 the Flash. It would be an eternal sepa- 
 ration. It is nothing less than suicide." 
 She gave a little gulp, and clung again 
 appealingly to her husband's arm. 
 
 "There, there, girl! " Alexander's tone 
 was as soothing and reassuring as an eider- 
 down quilt, but his heart was a bit impa- 
 tient. "You don't mean, dearest," he went
 
 90 /;/:/:/'- NAM 
 
 on, quietly, "that you don't want me to go 
 fishing at all?" 
 
 "N-n-no!" Corona's voice came with a 
 catch and a gasp, as if she had been sud- 
 denly struck with spray in the face. "I 
 wouldn't have you give up your trip for 
 anything, especially if you have made an 
 engagement with Father Morrison." 
 
 Alexander smiled inaudibly. An irrev- 
 ocable engagement with the lobster man, 
 as if he were a banking magnate ! But 
 this was just like Corona. The poorer and 
 plainer her neighbors were the more she 
 seemed to think of them. Nevertheless, he 
 stood to his purposes, feeling, manlike, that 
 if he gave in an inch now, his future inde- 
 pendence wouldn't be worth mentioning; 
 and she, poor woman, felt that if she did 
 not concur in his resolution, happiness 
 might take flight from their cottage window. 
 "Besides," she continued heroically, "a 
 man must have his pleasures, even if they 
 do take him away from his wife ; only I beg 
 of you, don't go in the Flash."
 
 DEEP-SEA FISHING 91 
 
 "Very well, what shall I go in? " 
 
 "I shouldn't object to a tug." 
 
 "A tug! Why don't I charter a Cu- 
 narder? You must be crazy, child. You 
 never used to be foolish like that. I always 
 thought you were a sensible woman." 
 
 "But I wasn't married then, dear. It 
 makes all the difference in the world." 
 
 " I suppose so. Very well. I will char- 
 ter a tug to go two miles off the Point fish- 
 ing. It will probably cost me fifty dollars, 
 but as long as you will feel that I am 
 safe, I suppose " he stopped sternly. 
 
 But this sarcasm was all lost on Corona. 
 She was literally immolating herself upon 
 the altar of self - sacrifice. What would 
 have been the most natural thing in the 
 world two months ago, now seemed to her 
 wedded apprehension a desperate undertak- 
 ing. The placid ocean that used to be so 
 sympathetic was now suddenly changed to 
 torpid malignity. For Alexander to go out 
 upon the water without her was like trusting 
 him to a raging, personal enemy. And
 
 92 DEEP-SEA FISHING 
 
 now before her imagination, congested by 
 the fear that feeds on love, there swept pic- 
 ture after picture of horrible Atlantic scenes 
 of shipwreck, of hunger and thirst and 
 exposure, of torturing death, and of the 
 rescue that came an hour too late. These 
 tales of Fairharbor woes, that had formerly 
 glided like distant tragedies from her mem- 
 ory, now stabbed her heart, and caused her 
 a suffering too real for the man to com- 
 prehend. Nevertheless, resolutely, with a 
 devotion that husbands never can under- 
 stand and less appreciate, she hid her appre- 
 hension in her soul, concealed the withering 
 anxiety that she knew she must bear until 
 he safely returned, and smilingly said : 
 
 "Forgive me, dear, my anxiety about the 
 Flash. I take it all back. You are cer- 
 tainly a good enough sailor to be the best 
 judge. We don't consider the Flash a safe 
 boat around here. Having said that, it is 
 all that is necessary. Puelvir will have a 
 cup of coffee ready for you and put you up 
 some lunch, and I hope you will have a
 
 DEEP-SEA FISHING 93 
 
 splendid day's fishing." No one knows 
 what that speech cost the new wife. Hens- 
 leigh may have had an inkling, and a tinge 
 of remorse may have touched him as he 
 accepted her renunciation. 
 
 "There ! " he said. " That 's the kind of 
 a wife I like." And, foolish woman that 
 she was, she deluded herself into thinking 
 that his little appreciation might more than 
 pay her for the torture of letting him have 
 his own way. 
 
 But she did not sleep that night. Every 
 hour or so she timidly put out her hand to 
 be sure that her husband was really there. 
 She had a feeling that these might be the 
 last hours on earth together. 
 
 The next morning broke with a motion- 
 less sea and sky. A gentle haze idealized 
 the harbor and made it look like the image 
 of a dream. Picturesque dories were lazily 
 creeping to their traps at which already a 
 small fleet of shore fishing sloops were sloth- 
 fully anchored, their sails hanging in list- 
 less folds, waiting for the ruffles on the 
 water to chase the calm.
 
 94 DEEP-SEA FISHING 
 
 "At any rate," thought Corona, "he 
 can't drown in a calm, or be run over. 
 God is good to me." And her heart rose. 
 Aloud she said : 
 
 "What a glorious day, and how the fish 
 will bite!" 
 
 "Yes," said Hensleigh with the good- 
 humored aggressiveness of a man who is in 
 the process of successfully carrying his point, 
 "and you may thank your stars you are not 
 going to broil out there all day in a ground 
 swell with not a breath of air." 
 
 "But I wasn't invited, anyway," Corona 
 observed demurely as she took the milk 
 pitcher from Puelvir and poured the white 
 cascade into the thick summer goblet. 
 
 "Hm-m! I hadn't thought of that; 
 but if you 'd really like to go, you had bet- 
 ter put on" he flunked helplessly like 
 a schoolboy. 
 
 "Never mind me, dear," interrupted Co- 
 rona with a heroic air, "this is your day, 
 and I hope you will be happier than I. I 
 wouldn't spoil it by going for the world.
 
 DEEP-SEA FISHING 95 
 
 And is n't this better than starting out from 
 an old boarding-house without any one to 
 look after you?" 
 
 The look that Alexander gave his wife 
 for answer was interrupted by a hoarse call 
 from the rocks. 
 
 "Air ye ready?" bawled Father Morri- 
 son. "Them tinkers will all be sold out 
 an' ye '11 hev to bait up with squid if ye 
 don't slip yer moorin' purty quick." 
 
 Corona gave her husband's arm the last 
 tender pat while he bent to kiss her. She 
 tried to give the parting a light appearance. 
 But, in truth, she felt as if it were the last. 
 She set her teeth in her tongue to keep from 
 crying. Alexander, obtuse whether will- 
 fully or not, who shall say ? to this femi- 
 nine suffering, picked up his lunch basket, 
 and ran like a boy down the slippery gran- 
 ite. His heart was full of her tenderness 
 and of the delight of the home which his 
 soul had craved all these years. At the 
 same time, his mind was distracted with the 
 idea of sport. It would be an interesting
 
 96 DEEP-SEA FISHING 
 
 study to inquire into the number of happy 
 homes that have been blasted by the mas- 
 culine insanity to go forth and kill. How 
 many athletic men are 1 there who would 
 deny themselves what they call "sport" for 
 the sake of a little wife at home? It may 
 not be impossible that in the next world 
 murdered partridges and deer and salmon 
 and trout may be allowed a game preserve 
 stocked with the men who hunted them; 
 a state of retribution where the open season 
 for this sport extends throughout the whole 
 year, and where pigeons may have shooting- 
 matches to see how many heartless humans 
 they can wing in a hundred shots. 
 
 But Hensleigh did not think of these 
 things. He was a little restless under his 
 wife's surveillance. 
 
 "You will take good care of him, Father 
 Morrison, for my sake?" fluttered plain- 
 tively over the water after them as they lus- 
 tily rowed the Flash to the nearest trap. 
 "As if I were a boy! " he thought to him- 
 self, forgetting for the moment what he very
 
 DEEP-SEA FISHING 97 
 
 well knew, that every wife looks upon her 
 husband as a big boy, a cross between a 
 lover and a baby, and that this is the most 
 natural, maternal, and loveliest thing in the 
 world. And soon he forgot the loneliness 
 which he had left behind, and only thought 
 of keeping cool his glistening bait for which 
 he had paid twenty -five cents a bucket, and 
 of getting upon the ground before the rest 
 of the professional fleet. 
 
 It was about nine o'clock that morning 
 when Father Morrison cast a look of unut- 
 terable disgust into the water. The two 
 men had been fishing doggedly. 
 
 "That's the tenth shark I've hooked," 
 he muttered with a salty expletive, "and 
 I 'm danged " Here he took his line by 
 the lead, and swinging it in a three quarters 
 circle, he dexterously brought the head of 
 the white, squirming, vicious little shark 
 down upon the rail of the boat with a thud 
 "if I'll throw her out again! I don't 
 fish fur dogs fur no man." His voice fell
 
 98 DEEP-SEA FISHING 
 
 into inarticulate growls as he cut the hook 
 out of the dogfish's mouth. When that 
 was done, he looked up at Hensleigh from 
 under his bushy white eyebrows as if that 
 innocent groom were the cause of this disas- 
 trous strike of fish. 
 
 But Hensleigh did not say anything. 
 His line dipped. He recovered it with a 
 jerk, and now began to haul up the sixteen 
 fathoms of cod-line hand over hand. 
 
 " That 's no dog!" he finally exclaimed 
 in exultation, as the struggling line came 
 in harder and harder, and he paused for a 
 moment to rest. 
 
 "Keep her taut!" cried Father Morri- 
 son, interested for the first time that hot, 
 calm day. He put out his gnarled hand to 
 feel the line. 
 
 "Don't touch it! I'll haul her up my- 
 self." Alexander spoke impatiently. "Have 
 the gaff ready. There she comes! " Hens- 
 leigh bent over to greet his capture, and 
 peered into the ugliest, most horrible face 
 he had ever seen. One look into the coun-
 
 DEEP-SEA FISHING 99 
 
 tenance of that fish was enough for the old 
 man. He dropped the gaff in despair, and 
 fell back upon the thwarts with a grunt. 
 
 "What is it?" asked Alexander help- 
 lessly. "How shall I get it off?" He 
 picked up the gaff and put it teasingly in 
 the creature's mouth. This the fish bit in 
 two as if it were a toothpick. 
 
 "You'd better cut the line," observed 
 the old fisherman with dry irritation. 
 "You '11 never get that hook out. It 's 
 worse than a dog." 
 
 Hensleigh gave a sickened look at the 
 monstrous gray distortion, that snapped at 
 him madly. 
 
 "What is it? " he asked, feeling dizzy as 
 he bent to cut the intruder off. 
 
 "What? " repeated Father Morrison sav- 
 agely, "what is it? It 's a cat ! " 
 
 When Heiisleigh had determined upon 
 this fishing trip, he had made up his mind 
 to make the most of this his first outing 
 since his marriage. While he had no idea 
 of inflicting pain upon the wife whom he
 
 100 DEEP-SEA FJSHING 
 
 loved with all his heart, his mind, and 
 his soul, nevertheless he had his theories. 
 Most married men have. One of Hens- 
 leigh's ran interrogator ily through his mind 
 in some such fashion as this : would not his 
 whole married life be happier if he accus- 
 tomed her soon to the thought of his ab- 
 sence? It seldom occurs to the man that 
 while he is being diverted by business, 
 travel, or pleasure, the wife whom he leaves 
 behind may prefer the monotonous miseries 
 of waiting and watching, to the forgetful- 
 ness which distraction makes possible. He 
 had never understood before marriage that 
 Corona had this insensate fear of the water. 
 Probably she did not know it herself. 
 Therefore, Alexander was really unaware of 
 the extent of the suffering he was inflicting. 
 He was not in a hurry. Not a cod, not a 
 haddock, a hake, or any other respectable 
 fish were on the grounds that morning. The 
 voracious dogfish had driven everything off, 
 and while the professional fishermen, well 
 knowing the futility of earning a living
 
 DEEP-SEA FISHING 101 
 
 under such conditions, had long since gone 
 home in disgust, the amateur had clung to 
 a vain hope and had stayed on, notwith- 
 standing Father Morrison's grunts and ex- 
 pletives. 
 
 "We 've brought our lunch, and we might 
 as well stay," explained Hensleigh apolo- 
 getically. "The luck will turn with the 
 'tide." 
 
 "Jess as you say," observed the old fish- 
 erman briefly. He was paid by the hour, 
 and could afford to sprawl idly on the 
 thwarts and smoke his pipe. The ability 
 to resign one's self to absolute laziness is as 
 peculiar to fishermen when there 's nothing 
 to catch as it is to a tramp. While Hens- 
 leigh was pulling up his malicious catfish, 
 which is the marine devil of the Fairharbor 
 coast, he was thinking how happy his wife 
 was, reading in her favorite hammock, and 
 how proud she would be of him when he 
 came home carrying Atlantic trophies. 
 
 In reality, the lady was at that moment 
 on top of the Point lighthouse, peering
 
 102 DEEP" SEA FJSHING 
 
 through a three-foot telescope, catching, as 
 she struggled to understand the mysteries 
 of monocular focus, occasional glimpses of 
 water, and rarer ones of the Flash. With 
 her naked eyes Corona could distinguish 
 the boat very well as it bobbed up and 
 down at anchor two miles or so away, be- 
 yond the red whistling buoy. This made 
 her very happy. But her vision, trained 
 by several seasons to cloud effects, noticed 
 something else far off on the southeastern 
 horizon. It was a dense gray -white cloud 
 bank that seemed to be creeping near and 
 nearer. Once, as she looked again, she no- 
 ticed a coaster disappear behind it. Then 
 she knew it was fog ! Up to this point her 
 miseries had been those of the imagination. 
 Now they began, indeed, to be real enough. 
 The lighthouse keeper heard her cry out 
 piteously : 
 
 "This is terrible! The fog is coming in! 
 They will be lost! Why don't they see it? 
 We must warn them. Oh, won't you ring 
 the bell?"
 
 DEEP-SEA FISHING 103 
 
 "There, there!" said the keeper kindly. 
 "It is coming on thick in course of time. 
 But he '11 be all right. Yes, I '11 let her off 
 for you." 
 
 He gallantly ran down the lighthouse 
 steps in direction of the bell. Now, it was 
 at this very moment that Hensleigh caught 
 the cat. It was the last ounce that turned 
 the scale of his pleasure into nausea. 
 
 "This is simply abominable!" he cried 
 out. "There 's no fishing, and this ground 
 swell is er very un humph fortu- 
 nate. Let 's pull up and go home. There ! 
 Do you hear that bell? Hark! " 
 
 The ancient lobsterman crossed his rubber 
 boots, and looked at Hensleigh with amuse- 
 ment partly veiled by sarcasm. 
 
 "You kin pull up," he said shortly be- 
 tween puffs, "an' you kin pull her home. 
 There ain't no air; there'll be one by 'n' 
 by from the east'ard. I 've worked them 
 sweeps gettin' her here all I 'm goin' to. 
 It 's about noon, an' I 'm goin' to make 
 the coffee." The old man, having delivered
 
 104 DEEP-SEA FISHING 
 
 himself of this mutinous sentiment, bowed 
 himself into the little cuddy, and pretty 
 soon dense smoke added to the disenchant- 
 ment which, the mention of lunch had in- 
 flicted upon Hensleigh's imagination. 
 
 Again the fog-bell tolled, this time with 
 greater vigor. 
 
 "He's salutin' boarders reckless, that's 
 what he's up to," explained Father Mor- 
 rison from below. 
 
 But Hensleigh lay in the cockpit, his heel 
 upon the wooden seat. He was thinking in 
 a turbulent manner how the swell had in- 
 creased since he had stopped fishing, and 
 what an idiot he was to go out when the 
 dogfish had "struck." In a reeling sort 
 of a way he casually considered how much 
 better off he would have been if he had 
 stayed at home with Corona. 
 
 The Flash rolled, her boom creaked at the 
 mast, her sails flapped, her rope swished, 
 and every time she rose the anchor line 
 came out of the water with a hiss. These 
 noises, so discordant and varied, became
 
 DEEP-SEA FISHING 105 
 
 monotonous when repeated ten times a 
 minute, and soon they even lulled Hensleigh 
 into a doze, in which the distant bell seemed 
 like a faint clear call. He only turned an 
 ashen face of protest when invited to step 
 below and partake of lunch. So Father 
 Morrison, with a meaning and indulgent 
 smile, ate it all up, and then filled the cuddy 
 with contented smoke, while his passenger 
 lapsed into a fitful and dizzy sleep.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE POINT 
 
 IT might have been three o'clock when 
 Father Morrison was aroused from the doze 
 into which he so easily drifted after a good 
 meal and a consolatory pipe. A puff of 
 dampness, that only could have blown 
 straight from the east, impelled the mariner 
 to immediate action. It was a danger sig- 
 nal which even his somnolent senses could 
 not disregard. 
 
 His rheumy eyes looked anxiously up at 
 the blue sky that shone down into the 
 narrow cuddy. But when the old man 
 stuck his head out, he uttered a cry of 
 alarm. For, not a hundred yards away, an 
 irresistible bank of fog bore down upon 
 them. Even as it advanced, lightly dan- 
 cing upon the darkening waters, it thrust out 
 huge, fleecy tentacles, as if it were alive, a 
 devouring kraken of the air.
 
 THE POINT 107 
 
 But Hensleigh opened his eyes with heavy 
 languor. His back was turned to the trans- 
 lucent terror of the sea. 
 
 "What's up?" he asked indifferently. 
 At that moment an arm of fog darted 
 ahead, and spread its fingers over the sun, 
 and obscured it as if with a film of milk. 
 Then an icy breath shot forth. 
 
 "Ha! what's that?" he cried with dull 
 apprehension. 
 
 " Get up there, you landlubber you ! " 
 Father Morrison uttered these gruff words 
 with the deadly fear, and with the resent- 
 ment of a man who has betrayed a sacred 
 trust. He spoke, also, with the license 
 given only to the autocracy of a captain, 
 and only on his own vessel. 
 
 "It's fog, I tell you! Haul in on that 
 buoy -line as ye never hauled before! Git 
 that anchor in while I h'ist the throat an' 
 peak! Goramighty! What '11 she say ? " 
 
 Hensleigh jumped to his feet. His dizzi- 
 ness had instantly disappeared. He stared 
 at the insistent fog, and then, as if by
 
 THE POINT 
 
 mutual agreement, the two men looked at 
 each other. Each had but one thought that 
 leaped into instant being. It was not the 
 terror of fog, or of shipwreck, or death. It 
 was the fear of a woman. 
 
 It was in vain that they tried to hide this 
 unmanly feeling by a sickly, pretentious 
 smile. In that brief interchange of mute 
 despair, it occurred to both of them that 
 perhaps it might be better if they should 
 never return. Then the fog swept by them 
 in rolling avalanches. The bell rang out in 
 quick, impassioned strokes in real earnest 
 now. It called but even as it called, the 
 Flash was cut off from all the world. They 
 were alone upon the deep. 
 
 It was pitiful to see how Father Morrison 
 fumbled in putting up the mainsail. His 
 hands trembled and dropped the halyards 
 repeatedly. During all these years "she" 
 had trusted him; he had been an honored 
 guest at her marriage, and now it seemed 
 as if a blight thicker than the fog itself had 
 darkened his life. He could never look her
 
 THE POINT 109 
 
 in the face again. He knew too well where 
 she was. His seafaring ears interpreted the 
 peculiar toll of that bell, a sound that 
 could never have come from a well-regulated 
 lighthouse keeper whose mind was undis- 
 turbed by visitors. A personal alarm, not 
 a general sense of duty, was behind that 
 nervous warning. She was in the light- 
 house hours ago. She had seen the mantle 
 that God had laid upon them while he slept 
 at his watch. 
 
 But Hensleigh said to himself: "She's 
 safe at home, and hasn't noticed this yet. 
 Perhaps we can get in before the fog strikes 
 the shore. If not whew!" With alter- 
 nate hopes and tremblings, he pulled in the 
 anchor line hand over hand, oblivious to 
 the red, poisonous filaments of the medusa, 
 that slimed his fingers and stung them. 
 After what seemed to Father Morrison a 
 prehistoric era, the Flash, with boom well 
 to port, was headed homeward as well as 
 Fairharbor skill could steer, to the double 
 call of the whistling buoy and the lighthouse
 
 110 THE POINT 
 
 bell, each of which in mournful antiphony 
 seemed to shriek for the dying and to toll 
 for the dead. 
 
 "I suppose you 've got a compass aboard," 
 Hensleigh asked, sitting on the other side of 
 the tiller, with his coat buttoned to his 
 chin, and the fog drizzling from his beard. 
 
 The ancient mariner shook his head impa- 
 tiently. 
 
 "Do you mean to say that you have 
 come out here without a compass? How 
 do you expect to get her in? " For the first 
 time a fear other than that of woman in- 
 vaded the passenger's breast. 
 
 "Look here, young man," the skipper 
 turned upon him a white, shaggy brow, 
 under which his bleared eyes burned with 
 rare energy, "a little easterly like this don't 
 make no difference to me. I 've run her in 
 a thousand times in wuss than this, an' if 
 ye '11 let me alone, I '11 bring ye in to her 
 ez safe ez a lobster in a pot. I kinder 
 reckon we 'd better stick together in this 
 little muss, an' say ez little about it ez pos-
 
 THE POINT 111 
 
 sible. I hain't needed a compass fur forty 
 year, an' I don't propose to begin now." 
 
 For answer Alexander laid his hand upon 
 the scaly fist that grasped the tiller. Then 
 he said softly : 
 
 "I don't care for myself, but" 
 " Hullo ! What 's that ? Ship ahoy, 
 there ! Sheer off, will yer ? Put your hel- 
 ium hard up! " bawled the old man, stand- 
 ing up in his excitement. With one turn 
 of the tiller he had brought the little Flash 
 up into the wind. There was a bubbling as 
 of many brooks. There was a swishing as 
 of a thousand churns. A huge, threatening 
 beak poised over them for a moment. Then 
 a cloud of canvas sped from under the 
 cloud of fog. The long bay of the fog-horn, 
 the seaman's drone of warning, grated upon 
 the damp air. The Flash, drifting helplessly 
 to windward, bumped the gurried side of 
 the scudding fisherman. If it had been on 
 the other side, the long booms would have 
 dismasted the little boat, and perhaps 
 drowned its occupants.
 
 112 THE POINT 
 
 
 
 A crowd of men looked curiously over 
 the rail down at the two. 
 
 "Hullo," shouted one, "old Daddy Mor- 
 rison ! Ye 'd better run in, old man, where 
 ye belong you 're lost, out here ! " 
 
 There was a rude chorus of laughter, a 
 gurgling such as only a sucking rudder can 
 make, and the insolent ghost had been swal- 
 lowed up. 
 
 "That was a mighty narrow shave! " said 
 Hensleigh, when his heart had stopped beat- 
 ing enough for him to talk. 
 
 But the old skipper, who had made up 
 his mind what course to pursue as soon as 
 the danger was really over, answered as 
 nonchalantly as possible, albeit with a for- 
 eign tremor in his husky voice : 
 
 "Oh, no! That warn't nothing. That 
 happens every day. You '11 get used to it 
 when you 've fished as much as me." 
 
 Hensleigh, who did not suspect that Fa- 
 ther Morrison had all the burden he could 
 bear, and was making the last magnificent 
 bluff of his life, answered tartly :
 
 THE POINT 113 
 
 "That may be. You may like that sort 
 of a thing, but I don't. Get out the horn, 
 and I '11 blow it while you steer. We ought 
 to have had it out before." 
 
 Then up spoke Father Morrison, and in 
 a petulant tone he uttered these memorable 
 words : 
 
 "There ain't no horn aboard." Not dar- 
 ing to look at his passenger, the old man 
 stroked his white beard, stained red under 
 the mouth, and peered vaguely into the wall 
 of fog. 
 
 "No fog-horn ! " repeated Hensleigh in- 
 credulously. " Do you mean that you have 
 gone out on this rickety boat with neither 
 compass nor fog-horn? What will Mrs. 
 Hensleigh say?" This last question was 
 asked in a menacing stage whisper. 
 
 "If she knows on it," Father Morrison 
 spoke with the deliberation, with the threat- 
 ening nodding of the head, and with the 
 gruff accent of one who takes his last stand 
 for life, "if she ever finds it out, there 
 ain't no more lobsters fur her, nor sails fur 
 you. Our famblies will be strangers."
 
 114 THE POINT 
 
 "If you can assure her that there is abso- 
 lutely no danger in a little fog like this, 
 and forget to mention little incidents like 
 those of the dogfishes and the cat I will 
 undertake to preserve your reputation for 
 seamanship intact with my wife." As Hens- 
 leigh spoke, twinges of remorse tweaked his 
 heart. To withhold information is some- 
 times the greater sin. He looked at the old 
 man with renewed interest. They had be- 
 come partners in dissimulation. He felt as 
 if they ought to be arrested for conspiracy. 
 
 "Done!" said Father Morrison with a 
 slight twinkle in his faded eyes ; and with 
 that, the two clasped guilty hands. "Now," 
 said the skipper in a matter-of-fact tone, 
 and with a face that was cleared with relief, 
 "I have shaped her course more easterly 
 towards the shore so as to keep her out of 
 the channels, and if you '11 take the helium, 
 I '11 go for'ard and sense for the rocks. 
 You needn't be afeard; you steer her ez I 
 say." 
 
 Alexander Hensleigh now took the tiller
 
 THE POINT 115 
 
 with a feeling of profound responsibility. 
 Neither of the two men felt inclined to talk 
 any more. They had now approached quite 
 near to the Point the tongue of land that 
 ended in the white government station and 
 the fog-bell, which tolled its warning in 
 precise intervals. Here and there in the 
 water were the black buoys of sunken lob- 
 ster pots, and, seeing these, Father Morri- 
 son felt entirely at home. As he had ex- 
 plained, a fog meant absolutely nothing to 
 him. The more dense, the more he pitted 
 his forty years of harbor and coast expe- 
 rience against it. It was not the 'fog he 
 feared, it was the lady. 
 
 " Ease her off a little ! Hard up ! Give 
 her another p'int to the south 'ard!" He 
 gave these and similar orders in a low, pene- 
 trating voice, and these the landsman ex- 
 ecuted with zeal and sense. 
 
 All at once a rasping, disagreeable, high- 
 pitched, squeaky bark rose above the rumble 
 of the breakers not many fathoms away. 
 
 "It's Matthew Launcelot !" cried Hens-
 
 116 THE POINT 
 
 leigh, starting up. "It 's the dog! Mrs. 
 Hensleigh 's on the Point waiting for me. 
 What shall I do?" His own anxiety for 
 her now reciprocated the misery which he 
 knew that she suffered on his account. He 
 also felt like a boy caught playing hookey. 
 The terrier, as if scenting the approach of 
 his not too well-beloved master, yapped 
 viciously and shrilly. 
 
 The fog-bell replied with a solemn Boom 
 Boom ! Still, the shore was not in sight, 
 although the Flash was scudding along only 
 a few yards away, ready to round the Point, 
 and tack for home. 
 
 "Keep still, Matthew! " The clear voice 
 of a woman dominated the surf. This was 
 more than Hensleigh could bear. He stood 
 up in the stern, looking almost as tall as 
 the mast in the magnifying mist. 
 
 " Corona ! Hullo ! Corona, dear ! I 'm 
 all right. I 'm " 
 
 "Alec!" came the harrowing call from 
 the other side of the opaque barrier. "Is 
 that you?"
 
 THE POINT 117 
 
 "Yes, my dear!" 
 
 "Oh, how could you? Where are you? 
 Come right ashore where you are! The 
 Lady is here to take you home. We 've 
 waited here all day, and not a soul of us 
 has had a mouthful of dinner ! " 
 
 It must be confessed that Alexander was 
 much moved by this address. He was just 
 about to advise his wife to get into the 
 buggy and drive home and meet him at the 
 wharf, when Father Morrison cried out sud- 
 denly : 
 
 "Hard up there! Keep off! keep off, I 
 say!" 
 
 Matthew Launcelot, having recognized 
 Hensleigh's voice, was barking with the re- 
 luctant welcome which he reserved for his 
 new master. He interrupted everything 
 that was said, and did not assist that poise 
 of thought which the situation required. 
 
 In his excitement, the landlubber did just 
 the opposite from what he had been ordered. 
 He put the tiller hard down, and the little 
 boat, scudding before the increasing wind,
 
 118 THE POINT 
 
 careened shoreward like a swooping gull. 
 Then the fog opened, so close were they to 
 land. It disclosed Corona standing above 
 them on a jut of granite, while beneath her 
 the smooth rollers broke into white foam, 
 and chased each other up and down a broad 
 green fissure. 
 
 "Oh, Alec!" she cried in ignorant rap- 
 ture as the Flash appeared suddenly to her 
 view, "I'm so glad you're safe! Dinner 
 will be entirely spoiled." She did not no- 
 tice that the mainsail flapped uselessly, and 
 that the wind and breakers were carrying 
 the boat irresistibly upon the rocks. 
 
 But Father Morrison uttered a terrible 
 oath. With the agility of a boy he darted 
 aft to the helm. , Hensleigh, paralyzed by the 
 disaster which his unpardonable careless- 
 ness had brought upon them, with instinct 
 to be as near to his wife as possible, dropped 
 the tiller, passed the old skipper with equal 
 rapidity, and stood at the bow, with one 
 arm about the swaying mast. His attitude 
 was clearly one of heroism, and was a faint
 
 THE POINT 119 
 
 reminder of Casablanca of burning noto- 
 riety. But Hensleigh's state of mind was 
 one of biting humiliation. To have caught 
 no fish was maddening enough, but to end 
 the day by running ashore in a fog, and 
 being drowned at his wife's feet 
 
 The ill-fated Flash was lurched nearer to 
 the reef. In a few seconds it would all be 
 over. No one could cling in this rolling, 
 easterly swell to the rocks, made more slip- 
 pery than a perpendicular ice pond by the 
 undertow upon the heartless seaweed. Agon- 
 ized, he looked up at his wife. And she 
 looked down upon him with a white, set 
 fright upon her beautiful face, as she sud- 
 denly realized her husband's fatal danger. 
 Thus, with eyes cemented together in that 
 brief moment which preceded the catastro- 
 phe, and which is always more horrible than 
 the fulfillment itself, the two awaited the 
 end. 
 
 There was a rising upon the third crest. 
 There was a series of fateful bumps. There 
 was a crunching and a grinding, a lurching
 
 120 THE POINT 
 
 and a groaning, as if the poor old Flash 
 protested from her very ribs against this 
 untoward end. This was followed by a 
 cascade of foam that covered the vessel, and 
 a final thrust as if the great Atlantic had 
 given the fishing-boat a playful dig with its 
 little finger. Still, Hensleigh grasped the 
 mast in the rigid embrace of despair. He 
 meant to go down with his colors flying. 
 He did not notice that the Flash had re- 
 sumed its even keel, and had not begun to 
 be dashed to kindling wood. But he was 
 aroused from his premortuary reverie by a 
 coarse command : 
 
 "Hello there, you blanked idgit! Why 
 don't ye step ashore there lively, before the 
 next comber wets yer pants ! " 
 
 Hensleigh's eyes, which had become al- 
 most glazed, now opened as with a galvanic 
 shock. To his surprise, he noticed that dry 
 land extended itself indefinitely before him. 
 Above him stood his wife. He could al- 
 most touch her. In fact, she bent over and 
 reached down her arm. He clasped her
 
 THE POINT 121 
 
 firm Land, and stepping from the rail of 
 the Flash, he put his left foot in a little 
 crack in the rocks, unwet by the risen tide, 
 and in a second he had his wife in his arms. 
 The infinite separation, the awful fog, the 
 territle danger, the providential escape 
 even Father Morrison all, all were forgot- 
 ten in that rapturous embrace. The light- 
 house keeper turned his head delicately 
 away, and tried to repress a rising sob. 
 He was used to great dramas, but not to 
 great love. 
 
 At last the lovers, satisfied that they still 
 had each other, unclasped and looked about. 
 It suddenly occurred to them that Father 
 Morrison might have offered up his life to 
 save his passenger. They looked down for 
 the martyr. There stood their trusty friend 
 leisurely lowering the mainsail, and the 
 waters lapped at him in vain. He caught 
 their anxious glance, and answered it quiz- 
 zically. 
 
 "Ye need n't be skeered. Ye see, this is 
 the only landin' -place on the hull coast, and
 
 122 THE POINT 
 
 puffektly safe at high tide. Ye said ye 
 wanted him right now, an' when a woman 
 gets sot, an' makes a p'int on 't, there ain't 
 nothing else to do, so I steered her right in. 
 That 'sail." 
 
 He bent to tie his frayed rope stops about 
 the worn mainsail with the same peaceful 
 air that he would have exhibited at his own 
 mooring. 
 
 "But wasn't it awfully dangerous?" 
 asked Corona solemnly. 
 
 By this time Matthew Launcelot had 
 come to himself. He had leaped upon the 
 deck, and was squealing at Father Morri- 
 son's legs to be caressed. 
 
 "Dangerous!" shouted the old man con- 
 temptuously, as he put the little dog into 
 a fold of the sail and stroked its bony head. 
 "I don't suppose ye mean to insult me, 
 Miss Corona, but I gen'rally land here 
 twic't a season an' sometimes more. There 
 ain't a safer nor a cosier berth on the coast, 
 specially when ye want to make the light- 
 house or the P'int."
 
 THE POINT 123 
 
 The keeper bit his lips. Father Morri- 
 son calmly took down the jib. His face 
 did not relax its serenity. Corona scanned 
 it closely, and then breathed a sigh of re- 
 lief. She had always trusted Father Mor- 
 rison. Why should she not now, especially 
 as he had brought her husband to her so 
 safely, so promptly, and with such wonder- 
 ful skill? Truly, he was the best skipper 
 on the whole coast. 
 
 Alexander opened his mouth generously 
 to explain his careless part of -the perfor- 
 mance, but out of the tail of the lobster- 
 man's windward eye he observed a warning 
 gleam. He only said, thinking he might 
 as well keep up his own reputation, 
 
 "Shall I put the fish in the buggy, 
 Coro ? " But Corona had turned away. 
 
 "I'm pretty tired," she said weakly. 
 "Let us get right home. And, Alec, you 
 must thank the keeper. He has been very 
 patient with me to-day. As for a fish, I 
 never want to see one again ! " 
 
 When the couple had crossed the creek,
 
 124 THE POINT 
 
 and the buggy was well out of sight, the two 
 men who were left gave each other a look 
 which it would take a library to interpret. 
 
 "Say, uncle," observed the lighthouse 
 
 keeper slowly. "How in did you do 
 
 it? I thought you were gone, sure. And 
 so natural -like ! " 
 
 "Never you mind. It's did, and he's 
 safe, thank God! I '11 come down to-night 
 when the tide serves, an' I guess we kin 
 shove her off, an' if not I '11 only charge 
 him fifty dollars. He '11 see the p'iut. But 
 she won't never know." 
 
 "Not if I can help it. It's between us, 
 uncle." Then, with great wonder at the 
 miraculous deliverance of boat and crew, 
 the light-keeper, learned above most men 
 of the coast in the dangers of the sea, said 
 gently: "Gor! I wouldn't hurt her fur the 
 world. She 's a lady, she is." 
 
 And over the rugged face of the old fish- 
 erman there stole a look of tenderness and 
 of solemn gratitude. This glorified him 
 into a different man.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE MARCH OF PROGRESS 
 
 "WHY, there's the Bobby T. ! " ex- 
 claimed Corona. She put a pound or two 
 more pull into her left arm, and the Sand- 
 piper turned its blunt prow towards a half- 
 hidden cove. The Sandpiper was Corona's 
 rowboat; a dingey, the fishermen called it; 
 it was a cross between a dory and a skiff. 
 
 The two had now formed the habit of 
 rowing after supper. Corona liked to do 
 all the nautical work. She brought the 
 
 O 
 
 boat in hand over hand on the hauling-line 
 which was fastened to two broken oar han- 
 dles driven into a cleft of the red granite. 
 She deftly untied the wet sailor's hitch 
 while Alexander, carrying the straight- 
 bladed oars, admiringly looked on. Hens- 
 leigh had no objection to being rowed out 
 into the pathway of the setting sun, and
 
 126 THE MARCH OF PROGRESS 
 
 back into the red avenue of the rising moon. 
 They filled these happy hours with lovers' 
 "little language." When Corona rested 
 on her oars and sang softly, Hensleigh beat 
 a tinkling time with his palm upon the reso- 
 nant sea. Sometimes he rocked the boat, 
 and the hollow "chunk!" of the flat bow 
 sounded in the stillness like a tertiary frog. 
 Now they drifted with the tide up the har- 
 bor, and now the silent current carried 
 them out into the breadth of the bay. One 
 evening they studied the marvelous color 
 transformations, cheek to cheek, so that 
 neither should miss the slightest miracle 
 that the other saw, and their hearts were 
 full of awe, and their tongues of silence, 
 because they were permitted to live together 
 in such a world. "Dear," Corona would 
 whisper, fearing to* mar by a breath the 
 transcendent loveliness, " Heaven cannot be 
 more beautiful;" and he answered with a 
 solemn inclination. Indeed, there are no 
 more wonderful sunsets in all the world 
 than those at Fairharbor, and the tints that
 
 THE MARCH OF PROGRESS 127 
 
 are the despair of artists are often the inspi- 
 ration of lovers. 
 
 This evening they started home when the 
 dew was heavy, and the thwarts and the 
 gunwales were wet beneath their hands. 
 Hensleigh looked up at his wife's exclama- 
 tion, and in the dimness of the twilight saw 
 two unfamiliar masts in a familiar place. 
 
 "What on earth is the Betsy T.?" he 
 asked lazily. 
 
 "The Bolly T. It 's our landlord's 
 fishing-boat. He 's been off more than six 
 weeks on a trip to Block Island, so Zero says, 
 and they were beginning to be very anxious 
 about him. I am glad he 's come home." 
 
 Hensleia'h showed no enthusiasm on the 
 
 O 
 
 subject. It seemed as remote to him as 
 that other which Corona introduced a few 
 minutes ago. What had he to do with 
 Heaven or with landlords? Honeymoon 
 and Paradise were enough for him. They 
 swept by the little fishing-schooner, bumped 
 up against the weeds, hauled the Sandpiper 
 out, and crept up the damp rocks hand in 
 hand. Puelvir met them on the piazza.
 
 128 THE MARCH OF PROGRESS 
 
 " Ye never can tell what mought not hap- 
 pen, when ye V out, Miss Corona," she be- 
 gan sepulchrally. "I never did favor that 
 man, and now I know why." 
 
 " What man? " asked Corona pleasantly. 
 "The raspberry man? " 
 
 "It'swuss than that. He would n't 'a' 
 had the gall. It 's that there landlord of 
 ourn. I wish they 'd put him into a lob- 
 ster-pot and made bait of him. He 's rose ! " 
 
 "Rose?" Hensleigh looked around anx- 
 iously, expecting to see a man towering 
 from the rocks. 
 
 "What can have happened?" asked Co- 
 rona, troubled. She held out her hand for 
 the note, which Alexander deftly took and 
 read aloud by the parlor lamp. 
 
 To Miss CORONA AND GENTLEMAN : 
 
 For season of 18 . To rent of 50 sq. ft. ground 
 
 lease 
 
 To cottage for one tenant . . . $25.00 
 " two tenants . . . 50.00 
 
 Received cash 25.00 
 
 Owe 25.00 
 
 Received payment,
 
 THE MARCH OF PROGRESS 129 
 
 "Why, I've paid my summer rent! I 
 pay it every spring before I come down," 
 began Corona excitedly. "I hold his re- 
 ceipt. Don't you remember, dear? I paid 
 it that day." 
 
 "He said," interrupted Puelvir, "that he 
 wa'n't consulted about her marriage. That 
 wa'n't in the contract. He says he 's upsot 
 comin' back from Block Island and findin' an 
 extra one on his premises. 'T wa'n't in the 
 bargain, and he 's goin' to be paid fur it." 
 
 "Great Caesar's ghost! " ejaculated 
 Hensleigh. 
 
 "Dear me, Puelvir! " echoed Corona. It 
 was the only oath she knew, and the maid 
 was used to it. 
 
 Puelvir now looked from one to the other 
 with an air of unprecedented embarrass- 
 ment. 
 
 "I'd rather tell ye the rest alone, Miss 
 Corona worse take him! " she said, doub- 
 ling up her fists. 
 
 Alexander, feeling that he was de trop, 
 put his hands in his pockets and walked out
 
 130 THE MARCH OF PROGRESS 
 
 on the piazza, whistling. Puelvir's voice 
 now sank to a gruesome whisper, and she 
 looked over her shoulder to be sure that no 
 one was eavesdropping. 
 
 "He says, Miss Corona, that if ye should 
 ever have a fambly, he intends to charge 
 twenty-five dollars a head fur each one on 
 'em. He seems he can't be reconciled to 
 yer gettin' married nohow; and if ye 'd con- 
 sulted him, and not sprung it on him, he 'd 
 'a' told ye so. Most of the folks on the 
 P'int feel the same way," added Puelvir 
 with a touch of pardonable malice. 
 
 "Dear me, Puelvir!" repeated Corona 
 more faintly than before. "Why, this is 
 terrible ! " 
 
 "Ye see," added Puelvir in an instructive 
 tone, "every one of 'em around here thinks 
 they own you." 
 
 "Give me that bill," said Hensleigh, 
 coming in. "I '11 attend to it. Twenty- 
 five dollars extra is a small matter for the 
 tenancy of Paradise. I '11 go over and see 
 him at once."
 
 THE MARCH OF PROGRESS 131 
 
 Alexander kissed a tear away from the 
 eyes of his troubled wife, put on his hat, 
 and hurried out. Corona expected him to 
 stay a long while, but in about ten minutes 
 he came back. He did not smile. At the 
 sight of his grave face her heart dropped 
 heavily. 
 
 "It 's no use, dear," began Hensleigh 
 soberly, "to try to bargain with him. I of- 
 fered to buy the lot we lease. What do you 
 suppose he asked for these fifty square feet? " 
 
 "Five hundred dollars?" Corona's eyes 
 brightened. 
 
 "Twenty thousand! He said he 's going 
 to put up two hotels and run out a steam- 
 boat wharf. He spoke about a skating- 
 rink, and mentioned a steam laundry. He 
 threw in a bowling-alley, by the way. He 
 says that fish is played out; that four men 
 of them on the Bobby T. only got two half 
 barrels in six weeks. He 's going to sell 
 his boat and live upon his property. He 
 says he 's going to haul his land into the 
 march of progress ! "
 
 132 THE MARCH OF PROGRESS 
 
 "I came here to have a quiet, peaceful 
 home," said Corona after a long silence. 
 "I built it, I lived in it, and I loved it I 
 can't stand seeing it spoiled forever and 
 oh! I cannot give it up." Her lip quiv- 
 ered. 
 
 "Don't!" he tried to comfort her. 
 "We can easily sell it; in fact, I had an 
 offer for it this evening. He said he 'd 
 swap." 
 
 "How much?" scornfully. 
 
 " Why, he said he 'd swap the Bobby T. 
 for it." 
 
 "The Bobby T. for Paradise? I would 
 n't let him have it for forty thousand dol- 
 lars!" flashed the outraged householder. 
 "But what shall we do?" 
 
 Hensleigh's heart echoed the words, but 
 he had no solution to offer. 
 
 For a few days the husband and wife 
 tried to forget the matter, and go on as if 
 nothing had happened. But Alexander 
 came in one morning suddenly, and found 
 his wife with a quivering chin looking out
 
 THE MARCH OF PROGRESS 133 
 
 of the northern window. Their landlord 
 and a strange man with a fifty-foot tape 
 were measuring ground. The husband per- 
 ceived that he must take matters into his 
 own hands, but, as often happened, he 
 missed the opportunity. 
 
 "Who is that man?" asked Corona 
 fiercely. 
 
 "He is the contractor for the skating- 
 rink, and he 's adding a proposition for a 
 band-stand at a very low figure." 
 
 "Will you please tell Zero to harness up 
 The Lady?" said Corona decidedly. 
 
 " Certainly. But what for ? " 
 
 "I am going out to hunt up a new home." 
 
 "And if you have no objections," Hens- 
 leigh smiled dryly, "I should like to go 
 too." 
 
 Corona asked Puelvir to put up a lunch, 
 and a supper, too. She added, in a dejected 
 tone, that she didn't know but they 'd bet- 
 ter lay in stores for a week. 
 
 "I shall hunt till I find another Para- 
 dise," she firmly announced. But her heart
 
 134 THE MARCH OF PROGRESS 
 
 echoed her own words with a sharp interro- 
 gation. Could it be is it ever permitted 
 to any soul to possess Paradise more than 
 once in a lifetime? 
 
 Zero brought The Lady. "We are not 
 coming back till night," Corona explained. 
 
 "Tight?" echoed Zero. "Yes, the har- 
 ness is all tight.". 
 
 "Night," repeated Hensleigh in a com- 
 fortable tone. 
 
 "All ^ight," replied the boy with a 
 smile. 
 
 "He always hears me," observed Alex- 
 ander with superiority. 
 
 Matthew Launcelot, between whom and 
 The Lady of Shalott existed an irreconcil- 
 able feud, trotted after the buggy as far as 
 the gate, and sadly watched it wind up the 
 little hill. He did not offer to follow. 
 
 Now began a systematic search that lasted 
 for three days. They scoured the town and 
 country. They inspected the cliffs and 
 beaches. They priced shore lots and back 
 lots, and were asked the same figure for
 
 THE MARCH OF PROGRESS 135 
 
 both. Hensleigh was looking for a house 
 with a lot; Corona for a lot without a 
 house. The man, who had once been 
 worsted in a contest with a builder, said 
 he 'd rather camp out than build. But 
 Corona said she 'd just as soon sign a con- 
 tract with Mr. Timbers as with any other 
 archangel. He wouldn't cheat her for the 
 price of a whole trip of halibut. Not hav- 
 ing a Fairharbor education, Alexander's 
 mind received no idea from this ten-thou- 
 sand-dollar figure. 
 
 The location of Paradise was conceded to 
 be the most beautiful on the Massachusetts 
 coast. To give this up seemed to Corona 
 like sacrificing a high ideal to a penny fact. 
 
 "How can I do it?" she exclaimed pas- 
 sionately. 
 
 Twenty -six views, including sixteen 
 houses cottages and Queen Annes, villas 
 and bungalows fluoresced before their 
 weary gaze. Their eyes had become Roent- 
 gen rays after these few days' experience. 
 When they examined the outside of a house
 
 136 THE MARCH OF PROGRESS 
 
 they found it unnecessary for them to go 
 within. 
 
 They spent the first day riding around 
 the Cape ; the second day in driving down 
 the coast, and the third day, in despair, 
 they went to Carriesquall. Alexander 
 drove. He had never been in Carriesquall, 
 and was touched by this beautiful Indian 
 name. Corona looked about retrospec- 
 tively, but The Lady of Shalott began to 
 act very strangely. Her head went down 
 and her heels went up. Her mane and tail 
 blew wildly in the wind. 
 
 "She 's running away! " said Corona. 
 
 "Running away!" exclaimed Alexander 
 contemptuously, sawing on her bits with all 
 his might. He was a man of a good deal 
 of muscle, and to have a horse get the best 
 of him in the presence of his new wife was 
 exasperating. 
 
 "I beg pardon," Corona gently remarked. 
 "She does look as if she were walking to 
 a funeral. Whoa! " 
 
 "I'll do my own whoaing!" Hensleigh
 
 THE MARCH OF PROGRESS 137 
 
 shouted, now rising to his feet and twisting 
 the reins about his hands. "That 's no way 
 to talk to a horse, anyway. Shh ! Back ! 
 Whoa there! Whoa!" 
 
 By this time the horse had taken the bit 
 between her teeth, and was bolting down 
 the street at a mad pace. There were no 
 citizens in sight. Only a few women looked 
 out of the windows calmly. The street 
 seemed to end in Ipswich Bay. The horse 
 had every appearance of intending to sunder 
 the tie between herself and her passengers 
 in the water. Alexander became very pale. 
 The situation ceased to be a talking matter. 
 All at once the buggy gave a tremendous 
 lurch, turned a sudden corner on two wheels, 
 and The Lady made straight for a barn 
 door. Unhappily, this was only half open. 
 The horse got in, but the buggy could n't. 
 The terrified passengers tumbled out. 
 Then The Lady turned her beautiful head 
 around, regarded her owner with a pleased 
 expression, and whinnied gently. 
 
 At that moment a kindly looking elderly 
 man ran out of the kitchen door.
 
 138 THE MARCH OF PROGRESS 
 
 "Why, this is Northeast Carriesquall ! " 
 exclaimed Corona. "I might have remem- 
 bered. This must be The Lady's old home. 
 Why, you clever horse ! " She went up 
 and patted the quivering animal. "How 
 do you do, Mr. Thumb? This is my hus- 
 band. Alec, this is Mr. Thumb, who sold 
 me an honest horse." 
 
 "I should think he did! " growled Hens- 
 leigh. "It's the first horse that ever got 
 the best of me." 
 
 Mr. Thumb smiled benevolently. "She 's 
 some sperited," he admitted; "but my little 
 boy used to ride her bareback. I 'm glad 
 to see ye. What can I do for ye? " 
 
 "Why, Mr. Thumb, I never saw this 
 place before ! " Corona looked out over the 
 sea. There the lonely lighthouse rose like 
 a great white candle from the rocky coast; 
 and on the left the high dunes flanking the 
 beach drifted gradually to a lower level, 
 until the sandy shore melted into the bay 
 far down the desolate arc. 
 
 "Why, what a peaceful, pretty place!
 
 THE MARCH OF PROGRESS 139 
 
 You wouldn't sell it, would you?" asked 
 Corona. 
 
 Mr. Thumb, agitated by this stupendous 
 proposition, disappeared in the house to 
 consult his wife. When had anybody in 
 East Carriesquall ever had an offer for a 
 house before? But Hensleigh backed the 
 horse out and suggested that they would 
 ride over the field and see the place. "It 
 is really possible," he admitted. 
 
 "The Lady will be quite at home," added 
 Corona pleasantly. 
 
 A little cart -path wound through the 
 fields. The two followed it. A luscious 
 strawberry bed was on either side of the 
 road, and The Lady sampled the berries, as 
 she went along, with the air of a horse who 
 had done it before. They had not pro- 
 ceeded a hundred feet when they heard 
 startling cries from behind them. 
 
 "Whoa there! Back here! Get out! 
 Turn around ! Look where ye 're goin' ! " 
 shouted Mr. Thumb. He ran after them, 
 gesticulating and vociferating wildly.
 
 140 THE MAR&ff OF PROGRESS 
 
 "The man must be crazy," said Alex- 
 ander, driving on. "I '11 be hanged if I'll 
 hold up for him! " 
 
 At this moment Mr. Thumb's clumsy 
 figure overtook the slowly moving buggy, 
 and he yanked The Lady by the bit. 
 
 "Why didn't ye stop when I told ye?" 
 Mr. Thumb's face was pale with terror, and 
 his hands shook with holy rage. "Look 
 ahead there ! Can't ye see? " 
 
 "I don't see anything," said Hensleigh 
 obstinately. But Corona looked, and she 
 saw hanging from a limb of a tree on a 
 bough that their buggy must have touched 
 a black, swaying, living cloud. 
 
 "It 's bees! " cried Mr. Thumb. "Bees 
 a-swarmin' ! If ye 'd gone ten feet further 
 I would n't hev answered for yer lives for 
 five minutes. That there mare would 'a' 
 taken ye off the rocks into the Atlantic 
 Ocean ! Easy there easy ! " 
 
 Stepping softly so as not to awaken the 
 wrath that may easily be fatal to those who 
 intrude upon swarming bees, Mr. Thumb
 
 THE MARCH OF PROGRESS 141 
 
 turned the horse in as short an arc as possi- 
 ble. But it was almost too late. A few 
 winged sentinels had discovered the offen- 
 ders and began to drive them off. They 
 settled upon The Lady. The horse gave a 
 plunge, and before Hensleigh could realize 
 what had happened the two were tearing 
 out of town at the same gait as that by 
 which they had entered. The bees pursued 
 their enemy for two or three miles. Not 
 until the last one flew into the buggy and 
 was " squashed " by Alexander on his own 
 cheek, could he get the horse under con- 
 trol. 
 
 "I should think this ended Northeast 
 Carriesquall," he observed when he had at 
 last yanked The Lady to her haunches. 
 
 "I should think it ended the whole 
 thing," returned Corona wearily. She wa 
 very tired. "I don't know but we can get 
 along where we are r ' T she pleaded. But 
 Alexander looked at her keenly, and with 
 masculine persistence saved her from her- 
 self.
 
 142 THE MARCH OF PROGRESS 
 
 "/ don't mind the racket," he said 
 grimly. "I can stand a laundry blowing 
 off steam every five minutes. A brass 
 band and a season of Fairharbor hops are 
 nothing to me. I rather like a bowling- 
 alley. Two summer hotels, say five hun- 
 dred guests apiece, turned loose on our 
 rocks and playing banjos on our piazza, 
 only make company for me. I think 
 you 're right. I think we 'd better stay. 
 A steamboat wharf " 
 
 "Not for a hundred worlds!" she inter- 
 rupted hotly. "Paradise is lost." 
 
 "The serpent has spotted it," suggested 
 her husband. 
 
 "Your language is not exactly Scriptural, 
 my dear," replied Corona, trying to smile, 
 "but your facts are correct. There is no- 
 thing to be done. We must flee from the 
 wrath to come." When Corona really made 
 up her mind she stuck to it like a limpet on 
 a rock. 
 
 Alexander thoughtfully lighted a cigar. 
 They had come back through the town.
 
 THE MARCH OF PROGRESS 143 
 
 They had crossed the Cut Bridge to the 
 westward. They had left the large ice- 
 houses behind and were approaching West 
 Fairharbor and its beautiful estuaries. The 
 Lady of Shalott was trotting lazily. Sud- 
 denly they came out of the woods upon the 
 little station. It was deserted. The bag- 
 gage truck and two side - tracked freight 
 cars gave the place the air of an approach- 
 ing boom that might become metropolitan. 
 These suggested the hurry and business 
 that were not, but might be. They were 
 the pathetic amoebce of civilization. Bar 
 Harbor was started on less than that. 
 
 But Corona was tired out. The pine 
 grove between the station and the river 
 looked attractive. Alexander took the bri- 
 dle off The Lady and gave her the last of 
 the oats for her supper. Corona had disap- 
 peared. Memories of the honeymoon trip 
 flooded her heart like happy music and 
 soothed her perplexed mind. She followed 
 the narrow pine-needle path along which 
 Matthew Launcelot had led them (it seemed
 
 144 THE MARCH OF PROGRESS 
 
 to her many months ago) to the hospitable 
 dory. It was about the same hour, and 
 like that other wonderful evening the air 
 was calm and the tide lapped high. 
 
 "There ought to be a view here some- 
 where," she thought. "It must be ideal." 
 She could never see through other people's 
 eyes the scene of their voyage into a united 
 life. Everything about it was glorified. 
 To the left, above her, was a rocky slope. 
 She ran up eagerly. It was not more than 
 a hundred feet or so high. Half way up 
 she turned. Her husband had gone down 
 to the water, and was looking for her 
 vainly. 
 
 " Whew oo ! " she tried to whistle. 
 "I '11 race you up the rest of the way ! " It 
 was not a fair start, and he knew it; but 
 love gave his feet wings, and she had but 
 reached the summit when he caught his 
 Atalanta in his arms. 
 
 " Hush ! " she whispered. " Look ! " 
 
 They looked, and saw to the right Fair- 
 harbor Bay, and beyond, the sea. In the
 
 THE MARCH OF PROGRESS 145 
 
 calm a fishing-schooner was being strenu- 
 ously towed to anchorage by six dories in 
 line ahead. The little city, with its many 
 quaint towers that had almost a Moorish 
 appearance, gave back the changing colors 
 of the sunset. To the left lay the purple 
 of Ipswich Bay, and against its darkening 
 bosom white rolling sand dunes gleamed. 
 The river crept into a thousand inlets with 
 oily lassitude, and showed delightful possi- 
 bilities for the Sandpiper. 
 
 "Why, I don't know but I might live 
 here." Corona thought she had conceded 
 a great deal. " It is rather pretty. " 
 
 "Why, child! it's superb!" cried Alex- 
 ander, taking off his hat. "Here's the 
 station not three minutes away the water 
 right at your feet a pine grove that is 
 worth a thousand dollars the finest kind 
 of a view, and Ipswich Bay thrown in. 
 I '11 wager I '11 get it for fifty dollars an 
 acre." 
 
 They stood for a moment hand in hand. 
 Not a sound could be heard but the lisping
 
 146 THE MARCH OF PROGRESS 
 
 of the water. It seemed as if they stood 
 alone in all the world. A possible peace 
 crept like a dear friend toward them. 
 
 "Well" said Corona slowly, with a 
 long sigh of surrender. 
 
 "I'll buy it," said Alexander in a busi- 
 ness-like way. "Let 's eat our supper." 
 
 It was nine o'clock and dark when they 
 slowly drove up to the clothes-post in the 
 back yard of Paradise. Corona had not 
 spoken for some time. Matthew Launce- 
 lot and Puelvir and Zero ran out to meet 
 her, all talking and barking together. The 
 light looked out lovingly from the windows, 
 and the soft waves called from the feet of 
 the rocks. 
 
 "My dear old home!" said Corona. 
 "How can I can I leave it?" 
 
 Her husband put out his hand in the 
 dark buggy to caress her cheek; he found 
 it wet.
 
 THE MARCH OF PROGRESS 147 
 
 About two o'clock next morning Alex- 
 ander woke his wife. "I've got it!" he 
 exclaimed. "I can't keep it to myself. 
 You sha'n't leave Paradise. We 'II move 
 the house!"
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 PARADISE AFLOAT 
 
 IT was a moving subject, and the family 
 concentrated their attention upon it. After 
 breakfast the next morning Mr. Hensleigh 
 mysteriously disappeared. He came back 
 at twelve o'clock with Mr. Timbers and a 
 strange man. The whole family ran out 
 to meet them. Matthew Launcelot made 
 straight for the stranger's shins. 
 
 "I 've bought the lot," began Hensleigh 
 joyously, "five acres, water front and the 
 pine grove. It 's a splendid lot." 
 
 "Hot?" drawled Zero. "Yes, sir, it is 
 hot." 
 
 "Aren't you afraid you are going too 
 fast?" Corona asked lovingly but cau- 
 tiously. 
 
 "Dash that dog! Take him off!" ex- 
 claimed the strange man.
 
 PARADISE AFLOAT 149 
 
 "Drop him, Matthew! " threatened Alex- 
 ander. "Let him alone, sir. He 's the 
 new house-mover." 
 
 Like all pet dogs Matthew understood 
 everything that was said to him in the ver- 
 nacular. Comprehending the whole situ- 
 ation, he retreated in a dignified way to 
 his mistress' lap, loftily ignoring his mis- 
 take. 
 
 "This is the house," began Hensleigh 
 with a business-like wave of the hand. "The 
 lot, as I explained, is on that little knoll by 
 the West Fairharbor station. What will 
 you move it there for? I should think it 
 was about eh three miles, possibly a 
 little more." 
 
 "Hmgh!" snorted the mover. "It's 
 nigh seven. What do you say, George?" 
 
 Mr. Timbers, being appealed to, took out 
 his two-foot rule, and, after a few cabalistic 
 measurements in the air, announced that he 
 calculated it was about six miles and seven- 
 eighths. The two mechanics began to ex- 
 amine the house with expert expressions.
 
 150 PARADISE AFLOAT 
 
 After some consultation they both came 
 back shaking their heads. 
 
 "'T ain't none of my business," said Mr. 
 Timbers, stroking his chin with a fatherly 
 air, "though I always have looked after 
 this lady till now you see, I built this 
 house I should advise ye to stay where 
 ye are." 
 
 " We can't," interrupted Puelvir. " He 's 
 rose!" 
 
 "Circumstances make it undesirable," 
 observed Hensleigh with some dignity. 
 "We have decided to move." 
 
 "It's cheaper to sell her," said the 
 mover. "I can't get her over there fur 
 less than seven hundred and fifty dollars, 
 and me out of pocket at that." 
 
 "And I couldn't think of doing the car- 
 penter-work on her for less than two hun- 
 dred and fifty, and I 'd be losin' money on 
 it at that price! " added the builder. 
 
 "Why, Mr. Timbers," said Corona se- 
 verely, "you built me the whole house for 
 five." It dawned upon this young matron
 
 PARADISE AFLOAT 151 
 
 that her old Fairharbor friends were working 
 her new husband as an unfathomable mine. 
 
 "Of course," observed Hensleigh with a 
 smile, "I know that both of you gentle- 
 men would only undertake this as a mission- 
 ary job. That goes without saying." He 
 gently motioned his wife away. After a 
 few minutes' talk with the two men he re- 
 turned to Corona. "We've struck a bar- 
 gain," he said. "The mover will get his 
 permit from the city, and I '11 run over and 
 get mine from the landlord." Alexander 
 and the men walked off. The remainder 
 of the family collected and breathlessly dis- 
 cussed the stupendous situation. 
 
 "Move the house!" exclaimed Puelvir. 
 "You got to move mine too. My kitchen 
 and bedroom have got to go along." 
 
 "Yours shall certainly go," Corona com- 
 forted her. But in point of fact, she felt 
 dizzy with the rapidity of this masculine 
 energy that was sweeping through her life. 
 Left to herself she would have been all 
 summer coming to the point. Now it was
 
 152 PARADISE AFLOAT 
 
 done in four days, and even Tom had not 
 been consulted. The happy wife sighed. 
 Was she able to stand the pace or not? 
 
 "I can't get to and fro nights and morn- 
 in's," suggested Zero miserably. There 
 were real tears in the boy's eyes. "I hope 
 it '11 get stuck by the Baptist meetin'- 
 house." 
 
 "I bet it will!" cried Puelvir, flopping 
 her apron wildly around her head. "And 
 I 'd like to see 'em squoze along through by 
 where them fish flakes is, alongside of the 
 mast yard ! That 's an uncommon narrer 
 strip." 
 
 "It is a little narrow by the post-office," 
 added Corona anxiously. 
 
 " I know a house got stuck six weeks in 
 front of the engine-house. There was two 
 fires happened, and the insurance companies 
 made the owner pay damages." This was 
 the longest sentence that Zero had ever 
 uttered since he had been in Corona's em- 
 ploy. It must be admitted that she hoped 
 he would not blossom out into an orator.
 
 PARADISE AFLOAT 153 
 
 But for the second time Hensleigh re- 
 turned from his landlord sooner than he 
 was expected. On this occasion he walked 
 along with bowed head, and the two men 
 slunk behind him as if they were in dis- 
 grace. Corona's agitated heart thumped 
 wildly. 
 
 "Well," she said, "tell me the worst 
 first." 
 
 "We can't do it; he won't let us move 
 the house across his land." 
 
 "Why, he's got to! You must make 
 him, Alec!" 
 
 "I can't. It isn't in the lease. You 
 forgot to put it in. There isn't a word 
 about moving." 
 
 "But what 's the trouble? Why does he 
 object? " 
 
 "Corn and cabbages. He says half of 
 his crop would be ruined." Alexander sat 
 down on the piazza chair heavily. "I've 
 offered to pay for the vegetables twice over, 
 but he said it wasn't the money he set by; 
 it was the cabbages, and the hoeing of 
 them."
 
 154 
 
 PARADISE AFLOAT 
 
 For the first time Hensleigh's business 
 experience failed him; he saw no way out 
 of the new difficulty. The two mechanics 
 followed his example and dropped upon the 
 steps. They gloomily looked out upon the 
 harbor. 
 
 "You can move a house 'most any size, 
 'most any shape, 'most anywheres, but ye 
 can't move him. Nobody ever could." The 
 house - mover spoke like a graphophone, 
 without expression. But Puelvir, who was 
 calming the agitated group with lemonade, 
 pungently remarked : 
 
 "If it was me I wouldn't let him get 
 the best of ye. You give me my house and 
 I '11 get it over. I '11 sail it acrost in the 
 Sandpiper. Mebbe he 's sot, but I 'd be 
 setter!" 
 
 "Hm! Hm!" said Mr. Timbers, "that's 
 an idee! What do you say, Bill?" 
 
 The house-mover did not say anything 
 for ten minutes. He finished his lemonade 
 at one gulp, put down his glass, and walked 
 down to the water's edge. His practiced
 
 PARADISE AFLOAT 155 
 
 eye measured the rocks and the coast. 
 When he returned he uttered these epoch- 
 making words : 
 
 "If we could hire them two scows layin' 
 up in the inner cove at a reasonable figger, 
 and the sea wa'n't too high, and it didn't 
 blow up a breeze o' wind, and 't wa'n't 
 thick, and the tide served, I guess I could 
 jack her up, and skid her out, and tow her 
 over. I 've tackled wuss jobs than this, 
 and lost no appetite over 'em yet. What 
 do you say, George? " 
 
 "I hain't seen it done," said Mr. Tim- 
 bers unenthusiastically, "but if you say 
 'go,' Bill, there ain't a man on the coast 
 can beat ye when ye once get at it." 
 
 A brief illumination passed over the 
 house-mover's face at his friend's compli- 
 ment. He gave his hand a deprecating 
 jerk. He followed this up with a search- 
 ing look at Hensleigh, as if to gauge his 
 daring and originality. 
 
 "Do you want us to try it?" he asked. 
 "If ye do, we'd better begin to shove her
 
 150 PARADISE AFLOAT 
 
 out as soon as possible. It 's a calm spell 
 now. Ye never can tell what might happen 
 a little later. Ye could n't do it in the fall 
 nohow." 
 
 "Dear me!" said Corona, "have we got 
 to move now? Why, our honeymoon isn't 
 over yet," she added in a low voice to her 
 husband. Alexander answered her whisper 
 with a fond look. 
 
 "Just as you .say, dear. But if we've 
 got to do it the sooner it 's over the better." 
 
 " Well, I '11 run over and measure them 
 scows and see what the cap'n of the dredger 
 says. If we can put her through you won't 
 be out of pocket half what you would if 
 ye sasshayed her round by the road," re- 
 marked the house-mover, discreetly retreat- 
 ing from this domestic episode. 
 
 While the two men were gone, Corona 
 disappeared inside of the house. She went 
 alone. She went from room to room and 
 looked out of each window, as if to engrave 
 its individual view upon her heart forever. 
 Eve, in that other Paradise, could have
 
 PARADISE AFLOAT 157 
 
 hardly felt sadder when the angel drove her 
 out with the two-edged sword. But Corona 
 had locked her soul. She choked down her 
 feelings, and after a few gulps, and after 
 massaging her cheeks with her handker- 
 chief, she came out to her husband. 
 
 "Alec, dear," she began quietly, "I 
 think you are right, and the sooner it goes 
 the better." 
 
 Once in a while a man accidentally hap- 
 pens on an intuition, and this time Hens- 
 leigh divined the great struggle that made 
 his wife's decision a possibility. 
 
 The two men came back. Mr. Hensleigh 
 went out to meet them. In five minutes 
 he returned. "It 's done," he said. "We 
 begin to move to-morrow morning." 
 
 Corona gasped. She turned as pale as a 
 water lily. 
 
 "To-morrer mornin'?" cried Puelvir. 
 "Ye can't move this house to-morrer morn- 
 in', nohow." 
 
 "Ah," said Hensleigh indulgently, "and 
 why not, Puelvir?"
 
 158 PARADISE AFLOAT 
 
 "It's ironin' day," replied Puelvir loft- 
 ily. All the reverence, all the traditions of 
 the New Englander concerning the third 
 day of the week were in her words. The 
 house-mover observed Puelvir with some 
 keen admiration. 
 
 "Your folks are lucky to have one of 
 your sort, miss. I don't doubt they appre- 
 ciate you. I should." 
 
 Puelvir blushed, and bridled like an old 
 horse in a coltish moment. She could not 
 remember when anybody had called her 
 "Miss" before. 
 
 "You can go right on ironin' if you 
 wanter," continued the house-mover, "all 
 the same. Folks do. Some prefer it." 
 
 "What? Me live in my house while 
 we're sailin' over?" cried Puelvir gleefully. 
 "Land! Miss Corona, I 'm a-goin' to do it. 
 I '11 be starched if I won't! " 
 
 " George, you '11 have to saw that kitchen 
 off," added the house-mover. "The hull 
 thing won't set on one scow. And you '11 
 have to take down yer pictures an' crockery,
 
 PARADISE AFLOAT 159 
 
 Miss Corona. I s'pose you don't calc'late 
 to stay aboard, even if that other lady does. 
 You 'd better move out as soon as possible." 
 
 "Well, I don't know about that," replied 
 Hensleigh. "We don't get this every day. 
 What do you say, Corona? I gave up 
 Cape Breton, and here 's a comic opera 
 yachting trip providentially offered upon 
 the altar of my unselfishness. Shall we 
 stay aboard with Puelvir ? " 
 
 "I'm ready," said Corona a little senti- 
 mentally. " I 'm ready to stand by Para- 
 dise." 
 
 "I wouldn't miss the experience for a 
 good deal," answered Hensleigh with rising 
 spirit. "Sir, you may prepare to move us 
 all." 
 
 "Jes' as you say," returned the mover 
 with a meaning glance at Mr. Timbers. "I 
 hope ye won't have too much on't." 
 
 "Don't forget my clothes-post," called 
 Puelvir from the kitchen door. "That's 
 got to go! An' say! Be we goin' to leave 
 the hogshead 'n' the coal bin behind us?
 
 160 PARADISE AFLOAT 
 
 An' what '11 I do with my wash-tubs 'n' all 
 that truck under the house?" 
 
 "Will I drive The Lady around?" asked 
 Zero feebly, "or are you goin' to freight 
 her 'n' the buggy over? " 
 
 "Why, Zero!" asked Corona tearfully, 
 "what are you crying about?" 
 
 "He thinks he 's lost his sitiwation," ex- 
 plained Puelvir. "He thinks he can't walk 
 no seven miles twic't a day to 'n' fro. I 
 told him you 'd camp him out someways. I 
 never knew you go back on nobody." 
 
 "Why, we'll build him a little room," 
 interrupted Hensleigh carelessly. 
 
 When it became known in Fairharbor 
 that Paradise was to be moved and 
 moved by water public sentiment fer- 
 mented. Half the population of the Point 
 was on the ground at seven o'clock the next 
 morning when Mr. Timbers and the house- 
 mover arrived. The only conspicuous ab- 
 sentee was the landlord. 
 
 That day the temporary "way" or trestle 
 was put up, upon which Paradise was to
 
 PARADISE AFLOAT 161 
 
 slide into the harbor. The day after the 
 two scows backed up against the rocky 
 headland and complacently observed the 
 furore that their unprecedented appearance 
 occasioned. Coincident with this the house- 
 mover and a large gang put their desecrat- 
 ing hands upon the foundations of Paradise. 
 The building trembled. Trellis and sheath- 
 ing were ruthlessly cut away. The china 
 tinkled. Lamps tottered. Pictures swayed, 
 and books dropped from their cases. Mat- 
 thew Launcelot made for the house-mover 
 with a terrific howl. Hensleigh watched 
 the proceedings with scientific serenity. 
 But Corona turned pale. Puelvir was 
 wildly excited. She ran from room to room, 
 sticking her head out of every window in 
 the house. The great jacks began to writhe 
 and creak. Paradise thrilled and groaned. 
 There was a slow, sickening, upward motion 
 of the building. Puelvir, in an ecstasy, 
 cried out : 
 
 "Well, if he 's rose, he '11 find out we 've 
 rose too! "
 
 162 PARADISE AFLOAT 
 
 She ran back to her kitchen. The door 
 was opened into it from the dining-room. 
 She looked and then uttered a great cry 
 that rang even above the orders of the 
 mover, the stretching of the ropes, the clank 
 of the windlass, and the shouts of the land- 
 lord, who was vainly trying to keep hordes 
 of excited sightseers away from his cabbages. 
 "Hold on! Stop there, mister! You've 
 left my house behind ! " 
 
 The kitchen had been sawed through so 
 deftly while she was making the beds that 
 its excision had escaped Puelvir's notice. 
 As the main house rose, the kitchen, with 
 an indifferent air, remained in statu quo. 
 Puelvir could hardly credit her senses. 
 Little by little, like a nightmare, the kitchen 
 door grew small and smaller. Would she 
 be shut out of her own house forever? Her 
 precious kitchen, her new kitchen, and the 
 bedroom on top! The maroon and indigo 
 curtains! A blind instinct took Puelvir, 
 and with a gaunt leap like a kangaroo she 
 plunged down through the narrowing door-
 
 PARADISE AFLOAT 163 
 
 way, past the widening space, into her own 
 domain. 
 
 "Ef you leave this here kitchen behind 
 you leave me ! " 
 
 Puelvir set her arms akimbo defiantly, 
 but big, angry tears were rolling down her 
 cheeks. 
 
 "There, there, Puelvir," sobbed Corona, 
 "I told you the kitchen should go too. 
 Come here and help me, quick ! The vases 
 are on their heads. The water pitchers are 
 all wobbling. Oh, see the water leaking 
 through the ceiling and the teacups " 
 
 The house swayed and lurched. The 
 family gathered wildly to protect their altars 
 and fires. Matthew Launcelot's maddening 
 howls rose above the din. 
 
 Mr. Hensleigh laid all the pictures care- 
 fully upon all the beds, and then sat down 
 hard on several and broke the glass. Co- 
 rona put all her best china between the 
 sofa pillows, and Puelvir laid two coal-hods 
 and Johnson's big Atlas on top of them. 
 A mental aberration seized the household
 
 164 PARADISE AFLOAT 
 
 like that which possesses a family when the 
 house is on fire. 
 
 And now the cottage rolled out towards 
 the water. The excitement became intense. 
 Mad cheers arose from the spectators. But 
 the mover's lips tightened apprehensively. 
 
 "We've got to resk her, Bill," he mut- 
 tered to his foreman. " If the tide drops on 
 us before we get her on to them scows it '11 be 
 an all-night job of it, and plenty of it, too." 
 
 Hensleigh watched the process with great 
 anxiety. Supposing Paradise should be 
 lurched into the bay at the last moment! 
 Happily, the women of the family knew 
 nothing of any such possibility. 
 
 The tide was high at six, and it was now 
 nearly that hour. The two scows leaned 
 expectantly towards their approaching bur- 
 den. They were lashed together and an- 
 chored to the granite cliffs. A little out 
 beyond the traps a fussy tug officiously blew 
 off steam, as if protesting against a miscal- 
 culation that everybody seemed to expect. 
 
 And now the kitchen L tagged after the
 
 PARADISE AFLOAT 165 
 
 house valiantly, like a seine-boat towed by 
 a lazy schooner. Puelvir and Zero stood 
 sculptured in the open space where the wall 
 had been sawed off. Mr. and Mrs. Hens- 
 leigh and Matthew Launcelot occupied the 
 main house. The crowd watched breath- 
 lessly. Hensleigh consumed his tenth cigar. 
 But Corona, who could not smoke, trem- 
 bled. 
 
 All at once Paradise gave a great dip. 
 The scows swayed ominously. The tug 
 backed up with its huge warp ready for a 
 strong pull. 
 
 "Lord have mercy on us for a fambly of 
 fools and loonys! Here we be!" cried 
 Puelvir hysterically. 
 
 And now the kitchen L followed its 
 leader obediently. The tide had fallen half 
 an hour. One side of the flat scows was 
 held up upon a jut in the rocks. When 
 Puelvir 's L was slowly adjusted to its place 
 the scows tipped still farther over with the 
 added weight. The captain of the tug, 
 from the pilot-house, shook his head omi-
 
 166 PARADISE AFLOAT 
 
 nously. If the scows stuck and could not 
 be pulled off, he knew the chances were that 
 at the fall of the tide Paradise would be 
 utterly wrecked. He blew three impatient 
 blasts. 
 
 "All aboard! " shouted the mover. 
 "Don't mind jacks nor ways nor nothing! 
 Let her go, quick! " 
 
 The blue water foamed, and the tug 
 churned as she had never churned before. 
 The two scows groaned and crunched and 
 slid, and held, and slid again, and held 
 once more. Hensleigh and Corona looked 
 at each other. He was so disturbed that 
 she tried to comfort him. A moment would 
 decide the fate of Paradise. 
 
 Then the captain of the tug shouted to 
 the fireman, and the fireman, who had been 
 looking out of his side door, disappeared. 
 The screw turned as if it would strain itself 
 into an apoplexy. The hawsers cracked. 
 The scows scraped scraped and were 
 free. There was a great splash. There 
 was a sudden sinking Corona thought it
 
 PARADISE AFLOAT 167 
 
 was their destruction, but Hensleigh knew it 
 was their salvation. Puelvir shrieked, but 
 Zero was as mute as a monkfish. 
 
 "We'll be drownded!" cried Puelvir, 
 prancing about the kitchen like a maniac. 
 But the fireman of the tug looked at her, 
 and with a kind gesture of his big hand 
 comforted her. 
 
 "Well," said Alexander, with a sigh of 
 relief, "we 're afloat now and as safe as can 
 be. Let 's take one more look at the old 
 place and bid it good-by. We '11 have a 
 better soon, dear." 
 
 Corona sighed, and leaning on her hus- 
 band's arm she turned to look. Behind 
 them sloped a desolated rock. The hogs- 
 head and the coal bin ornamented the per- 
 spective. The landlord bowed unmoved 
 among the cabbages. The water widened. 
 
 "Stop! Whoa! Back! We've gotter 
 go back!" shrieked Puelvir suddenly. 
 " Mr. Hensleigh, they ' ve gotter go back ! 
 Whoa, there ! Whoa ! They 've fergotten 
 my clothes-post! "
 
 168 PARADISE AFLOAT 
 
 "Go and get supper, Puelvir," said the 
 mistress authoritatively. "Light your ker- 
 osene stove, and do the best you can." 
 
 But still the water widened, foam flew, 
 and the sea looked black. Corona and her 
 husband watched the receding shore in 
 silence. At that moment a carriage rolled 
 up to the clothes-post. A gentleman got 
 out then a lady then a child. They 
 looked perplexedly about them. 
 
 " It 's Tom ! " cried Corona. " It 's Tom 
 and Susy and the baby come to make 
 us a visit!"
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 PAEADISE LOST 
 
 "WELL, this is a pretty piece of busi- 
 ness!" Tom sat resting on his oars, his 
 handsome, good-natured face dripping pro- 
 fusely with the unexpected exercise, and 
 contracted into something that was not a 
 smile. Tom had put Susy and the baby 
 into the first boat that he could lay hands 
 on, and had rowed violently out into the 
 wake of Paradise. 
 
 "I say, Alexander Hensleigh, what are 
 you doing with my sister?" Tom's only 
 explanation of the sight before him was 
 that Corona had married a madman. He 
 looked quite fierce for Tom. 
 
 Corona and Hensleigh gazed down upon 
 their relatives from a superior height. The 
 dirty scow towered above the little cedar 
 boat. Corona looked at Susy and did not
 
 170 PARADISE LOST 
 
 say a word. Susy looked up at her sister- 
 in-law with unutterable reproach. Nothing 
 in the English language presented itself to 
 Corona's mind as equal to the situation. 
 
 "You see we thought we'd move," 
 she explained fatuously. 
 
 "It 's cheaper by water," exclaimed Alex- 
 ander with an embarrassed air. 
 
 At this inopportune moment Puelvir, who 
 was getting supper, and who had heard no- 
 thing of this unfortunate arrival, opened the 
 kitchen window with a bang. In this half 
 hour she had already acquired the nautical 
 habit of throwing things overboard. Hap- 
 pily, it was only a pan of strawberry hulls, 
 but these landed directly on the baby's head 
 and tumbled all over her little spic-and- 
 span dress. 
 
 What was merely a trifling coolness be- 
 fore now threatened to become an Arctic 
 family breach. Susy was greatly offended. 
 The little girl's clothes were spattered all 
 over, red and ruined. She looked as if she 
 had come from a battlefield. Susy angrily
 
 PARADISE LOST 171 
 
 tried to pick off the hulls with her white 
 gloves on. Tom leaned on his oars and 
 burst into peals of laughter. Puelvir's 
 hoarse apologies made a background to the 
 catastrophe. 
 
 "Here, Mr. Hensleigh," she ordered, 
 "you go take them pictur' glasses, 'n' water 
 pitchers, 'n' them two ker'sene lamps off 
 the front bed, an' I '11 slick it right up for 
 'em. You, down there, climb up some 
 way ; I '11 give ye a good supper, and after- 
 ward I '11 wash the baby all out, bless her ! 
 an' do her up again! " 
 
 "Thank you, Puelvir," said Susy with 
 unnecessary dignity. "We have had quite 
 enough of your hospitality. We will go to 
 the hotel. Pull away, Tom! " 
 
 Here Hensleigh and Corona recovered 
 their smitten senses. They cried out in 
 one breath : 
 
 "Come aboard. Do come and stay all 
 night ! move up with us stay a week ! 
 Take supper, anyway! " 
 
 "I've got griddle cakes," urged Puelvir 
 persuasively.
 
 172 PARADISE LOST 
 
 "There 's maple sorop! " called Zero ear- 
 nestly, as if this were an unanswerable 
 argument. 
 
 The engineer of the tug put his head out 
 of his little window and laughed. The 
 deck hands grinned. 
 
 "Shut up there!" the house-mover said 
 with unnatural solemnity. 
 
 This nautical appreciation of the situation 
 did not soothe Susy. She shook her head 
 sternly, turned it away, and sank back in 
 her seat. 
 
 "Put about! " she continued to Tom. 
 "The idea of expecting me to climb twenty 
 feet up that dirty scow with this dress on, 
 and the baby. I wouldn't risk the baby 
 on that thing " 
 
 "There, there, my dear!" said Tom pa- 
 tiently. He looked a little disappointed, 
 but he was a good American husband, and 
 accustomed to obey his wife and keep peace 
 in the family. 
 
 "Never mind, Sis, old girl; I'll see you 
 in the morning," he called out cheerily.
 
 PARADISE LOST 173 
 
 "By the way," he shouted when he had 
 rowed about a hundred feet, "whereabouts 
 on the map of New England are you going 
 to bring up? " 
 
 "Squall River!" yelled back Zero, in 
 behalf of the family. Zero could always 
 hear on the water. 
 
 Corona and Alexander, when their rela- 
 tives had gone, settled back upon the piazza 
 and looked at each other blankly. This epi- 
 sode had stupefied them both. The even- 
 ing air was calm, with just enough zest of 
 the sea and invigoration in it to make it 
 a quick anaesthetic to any mental turmoil. 
 They had decided to eat their supper on the 
 piazza, and Puelvir now came out of the 
 kitchen and across the gang plank, which 
 united the two scows, bearing a tray in her 
 sinewy arms, and muttering subdued im- 
 precations on the folly of their late guests. 
 She presented her employers with a kero- 
 sene stove supper of hot griddle cakes and 
 cold strawberries. The piazza bobbed up
 
 174 PARADISE LOST 
 
 and down gently while they ate. The tide 
 gurgled under the two scows. The tug cut 
 the water with a slow, indifferent motion. 
 Paradise Point receded obviously. The 
 mouth of Squall River yawned ahead. The 
 sun was setting. The harbor was as calm 
 as a washbowl. 
 
 "You're not seasick, are you, dear?" 
 asked Hensleigh anxiously. 
 
 "N no," replied Corona. She might 
 have said that she was homesick; but she 
 did not. 
 
 Alexander was in the act of swallowing 
 his last strawberry, and was feeling particu- 
 larly happy and peaceful and at home, when 
 there was a tremendous splash. This was 
 synchronously accompanied by a loud, viru- 
 lent hissing of steam. Corona sprang to 
 her feet. Matthew Launcelot was already 
 on his. This voyage had been a great 
 strain on Matthew. His little black and 
 tan heart had almost beat itself out in this 
 excitement. He had been accustomed to 
 burglars who took away a portion of the
 
 PARADISE LOST 175 
 
 house, but these malefactors who took away 
 the whole house bodily would have puzzled 
 the imagination of the best watchdog in 
 New England. 
 
 "Something terrible has happened! " 
 cried Corona, paling. 
 
 "It 's only the anchor overboard, and the 
 tug she's letting off steam," explained 
 the house -mover paternally. "Here ye are, 
 safe fur the night on the edge of the chan- 
 nel, and everything is all right!" The 
 house-mover put so much relief into this 
 last clause that Corona began to understand 
 the strain that he had undergone in this 
 novel experiment. She sank back into her 
 chair with a tremulous exclamation of grati- 
 tude. But Matthew Launcelot was not to 
 be appeased by soft explanations. He made 
 a dive to the side of the scow to which the 
 tug was lashed. There was no rail, and 
 the exhaust steam, as it came hissing from 
 below, obscured the edge of the platform. 
 The dog gave an angry leap into the white, 
 hot fog with a shriek disappeared over
 
 176 PARADISE LOST 
 
 the side of the scow and with a little but 
 significant splash fell into the churning 
 water. 
 
 Every owner of a dog knows the cry that 
 only terror and danger can evolve from a 
 canine throat. Dogs talk with as much 
 expression as people. Corona this time 
 knew that some real trouble had happened. 
 She ran to the side of the piazza towards the 
 tug. Puelvir, who had also been well 
 trained in the canine vocabulary, dashed 
 down the improvised steps of her detached 
 kitchen. The engineer of the tug shut off 
 the steam. 
 
 "Save him! Save him! Save him! " 
 cried Corona, wringing her hands. "He 's 
 all I have!" 
 
 At this remark, the unconscious survival 
 of her maiden days, Alexander shut his lips 
 together hard. 
 
 "Shall I jump in after him?" he asked 
 perfunctorily. He began to unbutton his 
 coat. 
 
 "N no"
 
 PARADISE LOST 177 
 
 Hensleigh threw his coat off. 
 
 "No! No! No!" Corona cast her 
 arms about his neck. Alexander struck a 
 heroic attitude, and looked much pleased. 
 
 "He's sunk!" shrieked Puelvir consol- 
 ingly. 
 
 "He's gone down twic't," drawled Zero 
 leisurely. 
 
 "Good riddance!" muttered the house - 
 mover, trying to look troubled, but instinc- 
 tively feeling of his shins. 
 
 At this agonized moment the engineer of 
 the tug caught sight of the little struggling 
 figure, swirling past the stern of his boat. 
 He ran to the rail, hurled himself over, 
 held on by one hand and one foot, and 
 stretched himself to his full length. He 
 had little space to spare. As it was, there 
 was half an engineer under the water; but 
 his big, brawny hand caught the dog by his 
 tail, and swooped him up as if he had been 
 a bit of waste. Dripping, handsome, non- 
 chalant, the engineer held the terrier up by 
 the nape of his neck, and tossed him upon
 
 178 PARADISE LOST 
 
 the scow at Corona's feet. For once in his 
 life Matthew would not stay to be kissed 
 and cried over. He slipped from his mis- 
 tress' embrace, and hunted the two scows all 
 over until he found the house-mover. Then 
 he bit that worthy mechanic incisively in 
 the leg, with the immovable conviction' that 
 it was all his fault. Hensleigh did not 
 know it, but that assault added fifty dollars 
 to his bill. 
 
 Now Puelvir looked upon the engineer 
 with much compassion. In her imagination 
 he was an important nautical character. 
 She had read of great deeds done at sea, 
 and now one had been enacted before her 
 very eyes. 
 
 "I 'm sure," she said to him enthusiasti- 
 cally, "the critter wa'n't wuth the awful 
 resk." The deck hands smiled audibly, but 
 Puelvir loftily ignored them. 
 
 "I wish it was you I 'd saved," answered 
 the engineer gallantly. "Then it would 
 have been something like." 
 
 "It wa'n't nothing at all," said the house-
 
 PARADISE LOST 179 
 
 mover with unnecessary decision. "Look 
 at me. I 've hed worse resk 'n he has. I 'd 
 'a' done that myself! " 
 
 "Why didn't you, then? " retorted Puel- 
 vir, looking from one mechanic to the other 
 with the coquetry that only half a century's 
 experience can give. Then she deliberately 
 turned her back on the landsman, and 
 gazed softly down at her nautical hero. 
 
 "Hadn't I better make ye some catnip 
 tea? Won't ye take cold?" she tenderly 
 said. "Or, perhaps, ye 'd rather let yer 
 wife fix ye up? " she added sadly. 
 
 "No such luck for me. I wish I had! " 
 returned the engineer. 
 
 "Then mebbe you 'd eat a griddle cake," 
 said Puelvir, blushing; "an' I'll run up- 
 stairs an' get a dry pair of Mr. Hensleigh's 
 fur ye." 
 
 "Not for Joseph!" protested the engi- 
 neer. " But I will take one o' them grid- 
 dle cakes." 
 
 In a few minutes, to the envy of all the 
 deck hands and to the consternation of the
 
 180 PARADJSE LOST 
 
 house-mover, Puelvir passed down to the 
 engineer a heaping plate of steaming grid- 
 dle cakes, swimming in Corona's most ex- 
 pensive maple syrup. 
 
 "I never ate the like of them before," 
 said the engineer with ecstatic solemnity 
 when the plate was empty. " The next time 
 I get a chance I'll take another; and the 
 next time I '11 take you ! " 
 
 By this time the captain of the tug, with 
 the aid of the builder and house-mover, had 
 securely anchored the scows, and had at- 
 tached to the front piazza a white headlight, 
 as prescribed by law for anchored craft. 
 The water was now alive with spectators in 
 little boats. Such a flitting had never been 
 seen in Fairharbor, and the house-mover 
 was the hero of the day. Mr. and Mrs. 
 Hensleigh felt themselves to be very infe- 
 rior characters in this public drama. No- 
 body paid any particular attention to them 
 not even their own employees, who pro- 
 ceeded with expert independence to make 
 all the arrangements for the night.
 
 PARADISE LOST 181 
 
 The captain now gave notice that he was 
 going to steam to his regular wharf in the 
 inner harbor, and leave them for the night. 
 
 "We always do," he explained to Co- 
 rona, who objected to being left alone with 
 no visible means of locomotion or protec- 
 tion. "I 'd have to charge you twenty-five 
 dollars extra, if I laid alongside here; be- 
 sides, it would n't do nohow ; it would be a 
 bad precedent for scows." 
 
 "But we 're not scows! " blazed Corona. 
 
 "It's all the same to us folks," waived 
 the captain, sounding several blasts of the 
 whistle to clear a way among the small 
 boats. "Ye couldn't have a safer nor a 
 fairer night, if ye chose out of the hull 
 year." 
 
 " Remember, dearest, I 'm here to protect 
 you," added Hensleigh with his tenderest 
 air. 
 
 "Y yes, " said Corona doubtfully. 
 "But, Mr. Timbers, won't you stay with 
 us and the mover, too? " 
 
 The mechanics shook their heads. With
 
 182 PARADISE LOST 
 
 a final glance of inspection they stepped 
 aboard the tug. "'T ain't necessary," said 
 the builder. 
 
 "I've got to milk two cows," said the 
 house-mover, "and I 'm late already." 
 
 Without Corona's knowing it, the tug 
 had cast off, and imperceptibly moved away 
 from Paradise. The fleet of little boats 
 turned to follow the tug. 
 
 "You're all right!" shouted a cheerful 
 fisherman. "Norman's Woe ain't safer 'n 
 you be." 
 
 Another husky voice took up the theme. 
 This came from the red dory of an eel- 
 spearer. "Ye 're faster where ye be than 
 the whistlin' buoy. Ye 'd hang there, a 
 night like this, with a cod-hook. There 
 ain't an air, and there won't be none." 
 
 But Father Morrison, from his green 
 lobster-boat, wet the forefinger of his right 
 hand and turned it to all points of the com- 
 pass. Then he shook his head sagely. He 
 did not speak. His last nautical experience 
 with the Hensleigh family had created in
 
 PARADISE LOST 183 
 
 Father Morrison an unprecedented humil- 
 ity. He rowed home without communicat- 
 ing with Paradise, for he did not want Mrs. 
 Hensleigh to ask him what he thought about 
 the weather. 
 
 Left to themselves for the first time, the 
 family began to make strenuous prepara- 
 tions for the night. As Puelvir's house 
 was entirely open to public view where it 
 had been sawed off, her maiden meditations 
 were a good deal disturbed. She took down 
 her maroon and indigo curtains from her 
 windows, and hung them at full width across 
 the opening. As these did not suffice, she 
 nailed up some sheets and a red and white 
 patchwork bed quilt. Upon her windows 
 she modestly pasted several copies of the 
 Fairharbor "Evening Gale." Then, hav- 
 ing satisfactorily inspected these arrange- 
 ments, she sat down upon her bed and be- 
 gan to crimp her hair. She only did this 
 on great occasions. Puelvir was thinking 
 of the engineer. 
 
 "Where's Zero?" cried Corona sud-
 
 184 PARADISE LOST 
 
 denly, from the main house; "we can't find 
 him anywhere!" 
 
 Puelvir put her head out between the 
 bedquilt and the curtains. Lucky for the 
 engineer that he did n't see her then ! " Zero ? 
 Why, he 's plumb, dumb asleep this half 
 hour. I slung him up in a hammock in the 
 woodshed! " 
 
 " I hope he '11 take very good care of you, 
 Puelvir, dear," said Corona. "Mr. Hens- 
 leigh says we 're perfectly safe ! " she qua- 
 vered. She was very uneasy. Even Alex- 
 ander could not comfort her. It seemed to 
 her as if the scow might yawn at any mo- 
 ment and let them through. As a potent 
 protection against such a catastrophe she 
 went all over the house and locked it up 
 three times. The strange harbor lights, 
 the sickening sway of the sea, the dipping 
 of the house that suggested implacable 
 forces, the cries of the sailors from good, 
 honest boats anchored near, even the famil- 
 iar odor of her husband's cigar all these 
 made the woman sick at heart.
 
 PARADISE LOST 185 
 
 But Alexander was in his element. He 
 stalked the piazza proudly. He felt as if 
 he were captain of a man-of-war. His wife 
 had to call him three times to come in ; and 
 when at last he locked the front door for 
 the night it was with a sigh of genuine re- 
 gret that he mounted the swaying stairs. 
 
 "Where are you, dear?" asked Corona 
 tremulously. 
 
 "I'm coming up the companion-way," 
 replied Alexander. 
 
 In spite of the strangeness of the situa- 
 tion the family slept soundly that night. 
 They were completely tired out. It might 
 have been two o'clock in the morning that 
 Alexander was awakened by a sharp, terri- 
 fied barking. Matthew Launcelot was at 
 the window. With one bound Hensleigh 
 jumped to his feet. To his surprise, the 
 house was lurching violently. He stumbled 
 over the dog, and threw up the window. A 
 terrible gust of wind smote him in the face 
 and almost strangled him. He could dimly 
 see that the harbor was white-capped, and
 
 186 PARADISE LOST 
 
 amid the shrieking of the wind he could 
 hear the straining clank of the chains of 
 the adjacent schooners. 
 
 Corona had now scrambled to his side. 
 She was completely dressed. So great was 
 her apprehension that she had thrown her- 
 self upon the bed in her clothes. 
 
 "This is terrible!" she shouted. But 
 she might as well have whispered. Her 
 breath was swept away in the roar of the 
 wind. 
 
 "Come!" cried Hensleigh. He gripped 
 his wife authoritatively by the arm, and 
 they pitched downstairs and out on the 
 piazza. The dog followed them, trembling 
 and whining. The scene that met them 
 was indeed frightful. They held to the 
 railing, expecting to go overboard at any 
 moment. The two scows heaved unevenly. 
 The ropes that bound them together cracked, 
 and at every motion the scows brought up 
 upon the single anchor and upon themselves . 
 with sickening jerks. 
 
 Hensleigh put his arms about his wife.
 
 PARADISE LOST 187 
 
 At that moment the squall gave Paradise 
 a merciless blow. There was a snap, and 
 then a sudden bound. 
 
 "My God!" cried Hensleigh, "she's 
 parted!" 
 
 Twenty Pound Light rushed by like a 
 race-horse. The two struggled to the end 
 of the piazza. When they got there they 
 looked for their kitchen L. Instead, was 
 darkness, and rushing of waters. The 
 scow, the kitchen, Puelvir and Zero had 
 disappeared. The occupants of Paradise 
 were alone, and headed out to sea.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 PARADISE FOUND 
 
 WHEN Alexander found his lares and 
 penates adrift, and headed, in the blackness 
 of the storm, out to sea, his first feeling was 
 a suffocation of conscience. To begin with, 
 he had married this woman ; to an imagina- 
 tion, that seemed at this moment of disaster 
 as turbulent as the angry waves upon which 
 they tossed, misfortune had followed them 
 almost from the hour of his alliance. Had 
 he not nearly burned Paradise up? Was it 
 not his fault alone that the landlord had 
 made a raise, unheard of in the annals of 
 real estate ? And was not this followed by 
 the placing of Paradise Point in the march 
 of progress ? He Hensleigh had been 
 the serpent in Eden, and he alone. And, 
 to cap the climax of his responsibility, had 
 he not engaged the mover, hired the scows,
 
 PARADISE FOUND 189 
 
 bought the lot, and launched Paradise upon 
 this mad risk? Thus, in the first shock of 
 this terrible squall, when he expected to be 
 cast upon the foam-tossed rocks that are so 
 artistic under a summer sun, and so deadly 
 under an easterly gale, he clasped his wife 
 convulsively to his bosom, while, at the 
 same time, he blamed himself most bitterly 
 that he had been the innocent means of 
 bringing oh, not only her precious home, 
 but her own dear self, into this deadly peril. 
 Thus in the blast, in the night, in the dash 
 of the spray, and in the creaking and groan- 
 ing and whistling and rocking of the scow, 
 in the very blossom of their honeymoon, 
 they kissed as if it were for the last time 
 their lips should meet on earth. 
 
 In the course of these reflections and en- 
 dearments it occurred to Alexander that 
 they were not drowned yet. He unclasped 
 his arms, and discovered in the process that 
 he had been enfolding Matthew Launcelot 
 in the same embrace with his wife. While 
 this discovery did not thrill him, still he
 
 190 PARADISE FOUND 
 
 was pleased to know that, so far, not one of 
 his immediate family was lost. He howled 
 into Corona's ear: 
 
 " If you can hold on to this piazza railing, 
 I will see what I can do! " He proceeded 
 to untie the lantern that was swinging a mad 
 protest and warning from the piazza roof. 
 Hensleigh remembered that there was a 
 large coil of rope aboard, and also a spare 
 anchor, which it had not seemed necessary 
 to those experts to put out. Having been 
 a yachtsman in his younger days, Hensleigh 
 found this a familiar combination, and he 
 knew what to do with it. But Corona had 
 no idea of being left alone. She was none 
 of your namby-pamby sort of women, who 
 faint at peril through sheer nerve cowardice. 
 She had often pictured herself in every 
 variety of danger and what she would do 
 therein. True, she had never pictured this 
 variety. Nevertheless, the mind-training 
 that she had given herself was not lost even 
 in this unheard-of emergency. 
 
 "Some one must be called!" she said.
 
 PARADISE FOUND 191 
 
 She staggered into the swaying house, made 
 her reeling way to the china-closet shelf, 
 and set her trembling hand upon the dinner 
 bell. Hensleigh was at this moment tying 
 a sailor's hitch upon the ring of the anchor. 
 Holding Matthew Launcelot with one hand 
 and the bell with the other, Corona closed 
 the front door and made her way, almost on 
 her hands and knees, toward the flickering 
 light near which her husband was bending. 
 
 "Somebody may hear us and save us," 
 she screamed. " I 'm going to ring. Hullo ! 
 Help! Puelvir! Zero! Mr. Timbers!" 
 Matthew Launcelot, recovering from the 
 limpness of mortal terror, roused himself 
 to sudden vociferation. 
 
 The dog's bark and the dinner bell rose 
 discordantly together. It was Puelvir 's big 
 kitchen bell, the one that she used when 
 people were out of doors and late to meals. 
 But only the rage of the squall replied. 
 
 "She's drowned," thought Corona, with 
 a ghastly calm. "This proves it." 
 
 Alexander was working to windward, and
 
 192 PARADISE FOUND 
 
 it is doubtful whether he heard either wife 
 or dog or bell. He did not look up. But 
 Corona looked to leeward. In the lashing 
 of foam and in the rift of the darkness she 
 thought she saw a green light. She did 
 not know that this was the starboard lan- 
 tern of a schooner beating into harbor, 
 close rigged, in the teeth of the squall. 
 Corona, quite beside herself, stared at the 
 approaching green light. She did not know 
 what she said. She called out in a shrill, 
 feminine quaver : 
 
 "Oh, please don't run into us! -We're 
 only a house adrift! We can't stop! 
 Whoa!" 
 
 Whether the look-out saw the unsteady 
 lantern, or whether he heard the yapping 
 of the dog or the clang of the dinner bell, 
 strange sounds at dead of night to be 
 driving with a squall, and to be borne upon 
 the spray to his alert ears, at any rate, he 
 gave a hoarse signal to the two men at the 
 wheel. 
 
 Threatening, like a huge nightmare bat,
 
 PARADISE FOUND 193 
 
 frightful, imposing, hissing, the three- 
 master bore away, and then came about 
 with Paradise under its lee. You might 
 have thrown Matthew Launcelot on board, 
 so close the apparition came. Fear-stricken 
 sailors bent over the lee rail and cast in- 
 credulous looks at the loaded scow. What 
 must their thoughts have been to see a 
 house loom up in the middle of the harbor 
 on a night like this? But Corona fell by 
 her husband's side. Both were dumb be- 
 fore their danger. 
 
 The hissing night swallowed the schooner, 
 and was blacker than before. 
 
 "Help me, Corona!" cried her husband. 
 "Quick! It's all the chance we have. 
 We must get this anchor out, or go to the 
 bottom!" 
 
 Corona responded bravely. Hensleigh 
 had taken the precaution to make the other 
 end of the rope fast to the nearest object 
 that he thought would hold. He had made 
 a hitch over a great joist that supported the 
 house upon the scow. It was a half hitch,
 
 194 PARADISE FOUND 
 
 and he might have been very proud of it. 
 But the anchor weighed a hundred pounds, 
 and was in an awkward position. Hensleigh 
 tugged and pulled. Corona poked and 
 shoved. At that moment the gale gave an 
 angry blast, more fierce, more virulent than 
 any that had preceded it. Under its force 
 the scow took on increased impetus. Hens- 
 leigh was now thoroughly frightened. He 
 gave a mighty hoist. There was a splash, 
 a gurgle, a pause, and then a tremendous 
 wrench that seemed to shake Paradise from 
 her very foundations. Windows cracked, 
 blinds rattled, and china and pictures and 
 furniture and doors reechoed and slammed. 
 
 Where were Hensleigh and Corona? 
 Prostrate beneath the straining rope that 
 had saved their lives. At this moment, as 
 if with Providence prepense, the wind 
 stopped, and the calm came. 
 
 "Matthew ! " called Corona faintly. Her 
 hand was in her husband's, but her arms 
 were empty of her dog. 
 
 "Matthew Launcelot! We're all right.
 
 PARADISE FOUND 195 
 
 Matthew; come here, sir! Whee-ee-e, 
 sir!" 
 
 But Matthew did not respond to this half- 
 strangled whistle. Corona groped around 
 in the darkness on the scow. But the dog 
 was gone. 
 
 Puelvir woke up shivering. The first 
 blast of the squall had battered down the 
 scant protection of curtains and blankets 
 that she had pinned up, and had left her 
 room entirely open on one side to the roar- 
 ing blackness of the furious night. Puel- 
 vir 's modesty was shocked. She sprang up 
 to refasten the curtains. She found her- 
 self in the middle of a whirlwind. First 
 the towels and stockings revolved about 
 the room, and then sped out the open side. 
 These were followed by sheets, pillow-cases, 
 curtains, aprons, blankets, chairs, and table, 
 until Puelvir felt herself irresistibly sucked 
 into the cyclone, and almost swept out of 
 her room. All this took only a few mo- 
 ments from the time of her awaking. Then
 
 196 PARADISE FOUND 
 
 came the breaking of the cable, and the 
 sundering of the two scows. Puelvir dimly 
 understood what these accidents portended. 
 She had rushed to the door that led down- 
 stairs to the kitchen. It was held by the 
 wind, and she could hardly open it from the 
 inside. In the struggle she began to call 
 out hoarsely: 
 
 " Get up there, Zero ! We 're ship- 
 wrecked ! The kitchen's overboard ! " 
 
 But Zero did not answer. He was slum- 
 bering peacefully in his hammock, which 
 did not sway with the scow. For Zero had 
 once been on a trip to the Grand Banks as 
 cook's boy, and neither the motion nor the 
 commotion was sufficient to disturb his 
 dreams. At last, Puelvir, breathing heav- 
 ily, arrived at the woodshed, and began to 
 shake the hammock violently. 
 
 "Git up!" she called. "The kitchen's 
 gone bust into the Atlantic Ocean, and it 's 
 bio win' like all possessed outside! Don't 
 ye hear it?" 
 
 "Hay?" asked Zero mildly. "It's too 
 early to get up yet. Lemme alone."
 
 PARADISE FOUND 197 
 
 But Puelvir, without ceremony, lifted up 
 one side of the hammock, and spilled Zero 
 flatly out on the heaving floor. The gale 
 roared. The kitchen trembled and shook. 
 Puelvir thought that they were about to be 
 bodily blown into the sea. So she stood up 
 as firmly as she could, and grasped the side 
 of the shed, to hold it down. But Zero, 
 whose intelligence, like that of all Fairhar- 
 bor boys, burned (like potassium) brightest 
 upon water, cocked up his head and listened, 
 and then scrambled to his feet. 
 
 "It's a squall," he said coolly. "I'll 
 go on deck and look out for her." 
 
 When Puelvir; struggled on deck and 
 found Paradise gone, she was overwhelmed 
 by a stupor of fear, not so much for herself 
 as for the safety of her mistress: 
 
 "She 's drownded! " wailed Puelvir, beat- 
 ing her hands upon her breast. " She can't 
 do nothin' without me. She never could. 
 He ]s no good! " To.-her mind the husband 
 had always been a useless encumbrance. 
 Now Puelvir looked upon -him as little less
 
 198 PARADISE FOUND 
 
 than a murderer. That her dear Miss Co- 
 rona should be separated from her under 
 these dreadful circumstances, and with him, 
 was more than she could bear. As for her- 
 self, it had not yet occurred to her to be 
 very much frightened on her own account. 
 She did not know enough to know what 
 danger she was in. But Zero understood 
 that they were in desperate straits. 
 
 "We 've got to hold her, or she '11 bring 
 up on Halfway Rock, and go to kindling! " 
 he roared at Puelvir, with an idea of giving 
 her comfort. 
 
 As they were in total darkness, the main 
 house having gone off with their only lan- 
 tern, Zero labored at a considerable dis- 
 advantage. Besides, there was no anchor 
 aboard, and no warp to anchor with if there 
 had been one. Zero was greatly perplexed. 
 But, as he had never been in sole command 
 of a craft before, and as he had seen worse 
 gales at sea and more water aboard, he un- 
 dertook his new responsibility with great 
 zest and some sense.
 
 PARADISE FOUND 199 
 
 "This ain't notliin' ! " he bellowed again 
 into Puelvir's face. "I 've seen worse than 
 this. If I only hed an anchor, an' a road, 
 an' rock bottom, we 'd fetch her up soon 
 enough." He crawled around to the great 
 wooden cleats upon which the warp had 
 been fastened that held the anchor before 
 it parted. Zero felt of the rope, and began 
 to pull it in. To his surprise, it pulled 
 hard, and before he knew it he had about 
 fifteen fathoms of good cable aboard. It 
 had evidently got fouled on the fluke of the 
 anchor, and been chafed off there by the 
 strain. Puelvir knew nothing of this find. 
 She stood with her gaunt hands making 
 telescopes at her eyes, peering into the 
 storm. "If she hadn't gone and got mar- 
 ried " she muttered bitterly to herself. 
 
 "I want an anchor! " Zero came up and 
 bellowed this request into Puelvir's face, as 
 if he had been asking for a dish -towel or a 
 quart measure, 
 
 "Why don't ye take the stove?" sobbed 
 Puelvir. "It 's heavy enough. I won't
 
 200 PARADISE FOUND 
 
 need it no more. We sha'n't never see her 
 again." 
 
 "It mought do," said Zero doubtfully. 
 "We mought catch on sumthin'. I hain't 
 heard of none bein' used that way. There 
 ain't no harm try in'. Gimme a lift! " 
 
 The scow danced and spun in the gale. 
 It was now far out in the harbor. Puel- 
 vir began to be thoroughly alarmed. She 
 could see nothing in the blackness. She 
 could feel the salt tears wetting her cheeks 
 like rain. She helped eagerly at the stove. 
 Zero pulled at the legs, which were of the 
 kind that stay on. The open side of the 
 sawed-off kitchen made it easy to get the 
 stove out and down upon the scow. The 
 muscles stood out on Puelvir's big, strong 
 arms. She lifted and tugged like a man. 
 
 "I'll tie the line on," she said, panting. 
 "It's my stove." 
 
 "No, ye don't," Zero retorted. "It's 
 my ship! Get out! You '11 tie a granny." 
 
 "Call me a granny?" Puelvir wrath - 
 fully lifted up her hand to box the boy's
 
 PARADISE FOUND 201 
 
 ears. But at that moment a wail came 
 over the sea. It was the tolling of a bell. 
 She thought she recognized the sound. 
 
 "It's the dinner bell!" she cried out. 
 "Miss Corona's callin' of me! Hi there! 
 Miss Corona ! Here I be ! " 
 
 "Eats! " interrupted Zero. " Here, 
 gimme a hand on this here stove. It 's the 
 bell-buoy off Norman's Woe. If ye don't 
 heave her over now we 're goners sure ! " 
 
 This practical hint as to their saline 
 status sobered Puelvir like a dash of sea 
 water. Choking, sobbing, dazed by gale 
 and sea, and loss and terror, she gave the 
 stove a mighty heave. It went over with 
 a splash that sounded above the squall. 
 The wind struck them more incisively than 
 before. The bell now tolled wild and mena- 
 cing. It came nearer and nearer. Zero, 
 in the meanwhile, was feeling of the cable 
 as the scow dragged the stove on the uneven 
 bottom. Suddenly there was a terrible 
 bump a howl of the bell enveloped them 
 a final shriek of the squall a surging
 
 202 PARADISE FOUX1) 
 
 and wrenching of the scow, and a slipping 
 of the kitchen followed. The two were 
 thrown from their feet. Zero was the first 
 to recover himself. 
 
 "We're all right!" he yelled above the 
 storm. "We've brought up on the buoy. 
 We 've give her a good crack. We 've 
 knocked the stuffin' out of her! The stove 
 has fouled her chain! Our anchor is 
 ketched! Bully for us!" 
 
 July never blossomed into a lovelier, 
 calmer dawn than it did on the morning 
 following this historic squall. The wrecks 
 of gilded yachts, of trim fishermen, and of 
 lumbering coasters strewed the harbors from 
 Boston to Portsmouth. Fairharbor was sig- 
 nally free from loss of craft and life. Only 
 two yachts had dragged ashore. 
 
 At the earliest gray of the morning, long 
 before the lobster men go to inspect their 
 pots, long before the traps are hauled, or 
 sloops leave their weirs for the early market, 
 two tugs, whose black smoke seemed even
 
 PARADISE FOUND 203 
 
 in the flying darkness to desecrate the purity 
 of the bay, coincidentally put their wheels 
 ha.rd down, signaled "full speed." and made 
 for the objects of thrnr long sotirch. One 
 tug was scouring the harbor; the other was 
 coming in after a fruitless trip at sea. 
 Since two o'clock these anxious guardians 
 of the harbor had been vainly searching for 
 Paradise, which, in its detached form, they 
 must have passed and repassed in the harbor 
 many times. In a little cove by the beach, 
 sheltered and serene, within a biscuit's 
 throw of a summer cottage, Paradise floated 
 peacefully. Towards it Mr. Timbers and 
 the house-mover, on the harbor tug, made 
 a straight course. Quaking with the terrors 
 of a broken contract, and the expected re- 
 proaches of an offended woman, they urged 
 the tug to its best speed. 
 
 On the other side of the harbor two 
 miles out on the edge of the channel, the 
 bell-buoy lazily called. Here a touching 
 meeting was taking place. 
 
 The captain of the tug that had been
 
 204 PARADISE FOUND 
 
 engaged to move the cottage leaned far out 
 of his pilot-house, giving orders to make 
 her fast, and to hold her this time with all 
 the warps on board. The engineer, having 
 shut off steam, was the first to board the 
 derelict. He and Puelvir met on the scow's 
 deck and wrung each other's hands like 
 friends who had been separated for a long 
 time. Zero came proudly up for the nauti- 
 cal recognition that he felt was due to him 
 at this crisis. 
 
 "It was a blow," began the engineer, 
 looking around and then letting his gaze 
 rest upon Puelvir's honest face, "an' ye 've 
 stood it, miss, like a man." 
 
 But Puelvir looked at the engineer se- 
 verely, and took her hand out of his. 
 "Where be they?" she demanded. "Is 
 she safe? " 
 
 For answer the engineer turned her shoul- 
 ders gently to the eastward, where Paradise 
 floated in the cove. 
 
 "See? I guess everybody's all right. 
 I '11 bet there ain't another house on the
 
 PARADISE FOUND 205 
 
 coast," he said, with a bow, "that hed rid 
 out that squall as easy as yourn. I 'd 
 rather have her than a yacht, a durn sight. 
 But how did ye anchor her? Ye didn't 
 have none aboard." 
 
 "Thank the Lord o' Mercy on us!" 
 Puelvir wiped her eyes with the back of her 
 rough hand. She was not thinking about 
 anchors. 
 
 "We heaved over the kitchen stove," put 
 in Zero proudly. " That ketched her ! " 
 
 "Kitchen stove!" repeated the engineer^ 
 "Well, I'll be slivered! Well, Zero, you 
 are a sailor, an' no mistake! You're a 
 scale of the old fish ! " 
 
 "It was my idee," said Puelvir, recover- 
 ing herself "but law! let the boy have 
 the credit on't." 
 
 "I allers said you was a corker!" said 
 the engineer admiringly, as if he had known 
 Puelvir a great many years. 
 
 "Come; boys!" called the captain, "cut 
 the rope, and we'll get her out of this, and 
 have her back there before folks get on to it. "
 
 20G PARADISE FOUND 
 
 "What, leave my kitchen stove to the 
 bottom? No, sir-ee!" Puelvir folded her 
 arms stoutly. "You men jest haul np that 
 there No. 7 Magee and .set her up for me. 
 I 've got to get breakfast the first thing! " 
 
 A gallant shout went up from the tug, 
 and the stove, covered with seaweed and 
 patched with starfish, soon sprawled up out 
 of the water, and was finally hoisted on 
 deck, and lay with its feet in the air. 
 
 "I guess I kin fix her for ye," said the 
 engineer. " I reckon I kin set her up for 
 ye when we git started." 
 
 Puelvir gave him a grateful look. 
 
 By this time the two tugs, with their im- 
 portant tows, began to approach each other 
 in the middle of the harbor. 
 
 "Oh, Miss Corona, dear!" shouted Puel- 
 vir, brandishing her dish-towel. 
 
 But the mover took Hensleigh aside, and, 
 with a dark significance, pointed out to him 
 his famous half hitch of the night before. 
 
 "It's lucky," he said dryly, "that the 
 wind blew itself out when you made her
 
 PARADISE FOUND 207 
 
 fast. If it had blown five minutes longer 
 that 'ere anchor would have pulled yer house 
 and you along of her, clean into the water. 
 Why, man, ye made her fast to the star- 
 board skid instead o' the scow! " 
 
 "Well, it held, anyway," said Alexander, 
 flushing. "But you need n't tell her, or 
 anybody else. Have a cigar?" 
 
 The mover accepted the bribe, and 
 smiled. He never told Corona. 
 
 The two scows approached slowly. The 
 passengers stationed themselves on their 
 respective decks with their handkerchiefs, 
 as if they had just returned from a tour 
 abroad. Instinctively the two women crept 
 apart. Puelvir rushed to her kitchen door ; 
 Corona went into the dining-room. The 
 scows were coming up side wise. Puelvir 
 bent far over and held her hand out. Co- 
 rona did the same. The chasm grew less 
 and less. Suddenly the soft hand felt itself 
 clutched as if in a hard knot. There was 
 a leap across the little space, and before 
 anybody could say, "Don't!" Puelvir had
 
 208 PARADISE FOUND 
 
 boarded Paradise, and the two women were 
 clasped in each other's arms, and were cry- 
 ing on each other's shoulders. Such a 
 pleasant scene can only happen when mis- 
 tress and maid are friends. 
 
 "Be you all safe?" hysterically asked 
 Puelvir. 
 
 "All but one," replied Corona, the tears 
 streaming down her face. "Matthew is 
 gone. The dear little boy is drowned." 
 <.At that very moment the front door 
 opened in a ghostly manner, and Matthew 
 I^auncelot, sniffing the morning air, saun- 
 tered .out upon the piazza. Catching sight 
 of the house-mover, he made a dive for that 
 gentleman, to whom he evidently attributed 
 the .entire catastrophe of that tragic night. 
 A cry, of joy answered Matthew's bark, and 
 Corona 'caught him ecstatically in her arms. 
 
 "He opened the door! " she cried proudly. 
 "I shut it in the storm last night, and he 
 must have opened -it and gone in all by 
 himself. That dog can open anything I " 
 
 "Ahoy there! Ship ahoy!" A gruff,
 
 PARADISE FOUND 209 
 
 guttural cry from under the scow, behind 
 the kitchen L, diverted at this moment the 
 engineer from Puelvir, Puelvir from her 
 mistress, the mistress from the dog, and the 
 struggling dog from the house-mover. It 
 incidentally diverted Hensleigh from the 
 knot which the deck hand of the tug was 
 tying to a new anchor. 
 
 "It 's Father .Morrison with them lobsters 
 I ordered for breakfast," said Puelvir with 
 dignity. "He never went back on us. 
 Land ! He 's got a passenger." 
 
 She had hardly spoken when a gentle- 
 man's face appeared above the edge of the 
 scow. 
 
 "I say, Hensleigh," rang out a merry 
 voice, "give us a hand up! This scow is 
 beastly slippery ! " 
 
 " Why, it 's Tom ! " Corona dropped the 
 dog and ran. "How on earth did you come 
 here? I'm so glad you never knew any- 
 thing about it at all until now ! " 
 
 "Are you? " asked Tom serenely. 
 "Well, I hope you '11 invite me to break-
 
 210 PARADISE FOUND 
 
 fast. I am a little hungry. You see, Sis, 
 I got up at two o'clock and started the tugs 
 out after you. Then this ancient mariner 
 and I have been scouring the Atlantic- 
 Ocean, and have searched all the lobster 
 pots in the harbor for you in this con- 
 founded dory ever since. Whew! See? 
 That 's Susy over there crying her eyes out 
 on the hotel piazza because we 're none of 
 us drowned."
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 THE SUERENDER OF PUELVIR 
 
 IT was the first Sunday in September. 
 Dinner was over. Puelvir was washing the 
 dishes. Her deep alto Sunday-school cho- 
 ruses rolled in refluent waves through the 
 new pantry, the enlarged dining-room, and 
 the comfortable piazza. Puelvir had sung 
 a great deal during the last six weeks, and 
 Zero had been blessed with a double allow- 
 ance of desserts. Matthew Launcelot had 
 finished his Sunday bone, and was trying to 
 decide which of the parlor rugs he would 
 use for a napkin. Corona lay in a ham- 
 mock. This was gently swung by her hus- 
 band, who lazily sat beside her. Every 
 now and then Corona would pat the hand 
 that held the netting, and every now and 
 then Hensleigh would call her attention 
 to a peculiarly perfect ring of smoke that
 
 212 THE SURRENDER OF PUELVIR 
 
 he blew from his mouth. This attention 
 seemed to the man quite an endearment. 
 He felt that he was very attractive. 
 
 "I can't get over it," mused Corona, 
 straightening herself up and looking about. 
 "It's the same house, the same husband, 
 but everything else is another world. I feel 
 like Rip Van Winkle. I go to sleep in one 
 place with one set of views, and wake up in 
 another place with an entirely new lot. I 
 don't get used to it yet." 
 
 "But, dear, marriage is another world. 
 It is a change of venue. You look out of 
 the same windows, but you see new scenes. 
 It 's the same old house with different views. 
 If you can get used to that you can get used 
 to this." 
 
 Corona sighed happily. She missed the 
 broad, bright harbor, the voices of fisher- 
 men gossiping at their traps, the running 
 in of neighbors, the bellow of the whistling 
 buoy, the great palette of the sunsets on the 
 bay, the scarlet flash of the revolving light, 
 and the rhythm of the water that used to
 
 THE SURRENDER OF PUELVIR 213 
 
 wash beneath her window and lull her to 
 sleep. She thought of her maiden life, 
 of her long, quiet, lonely evenings, of her 
 days busy with unshared pleasures and un- 
 comraded duties. The moving of Paradise 
 completed the feeling that she was abso- 
 lutely cut off from her past. 
 
 But she turned to her new horizon. 
 There was Squall River, although, it must 
 be admitted, a large mud flat at the ebb of 
 the tide, yet consequently picturesque with 
 clam-diggers; at its flood, it seemed like a 
 peaceful lake. Storms could not ruffle its 
 calm surface any more than petty misunder- 
 standings can disturb the hearts of those 
 who love each other. Below our two house- 
 holders, to the right, rose their own pine 
 grove, ornamented with little settees and 
 mosquitoes. Near by, the stern of the 
 Sandpiper patted the water softly at her 
 new moorings. Then there was a glimpse 
 of their lost harbor, and of the white city, 
 of Ipswich Bay, and of the great sand dunes. 
 Behind them lay the forest cool, delight-
 
 214 THE SURRENDER OF PUELVIR 
 
 ful, and unexplored. Gray squirrels chat- 
 tered in it. Birds, so scanty on the wave- 
 washed cliffs, rioted here from bough to 
 bough, and flashed in colors of the zircon, 
 the hyacinth, the tourmaline, and the sap- 
 phire. These new neighbors cheerily and 
 warily made acquaintance, and took the 
 places of the old. 
 
 "Come," said Corona. She slipped from 
 the hammock, and, hand in hand, husband 
 and wife strolled together f.or the hundredth 
 time joyously over their new, old house. 
 They stood at the parlor window. "We 
 used to see the beach from here before; 
 don't you remember, dear? But I like the 
 pines." Upstairs in the blue room, between 
 the muslin curtains, Corona lingered for a 
 moment without speaking. Where the gray 
 drift of the downs used to undulate, soft 
 and alluring, with the uneasy sea line be- 
 yond, now the tops of trees, the descent of 
 the valley, the winding of the river, and the 
 smarting white of the sand dunes looked in 
 strangely. A little ache of homesickness
 
 THE SURRENDER OF PUELVIR 215 
 
 closed about Corona's heart. But she felt 
 an arm steal around her, and then she 
 looked up into her husband's face. 
 
 "You don't mind it, dear, do you?" 
 Alexander asked gently. 
 
 "I don't mind anything as long as I have 
 
 you!" 
 
 Their thoughts, which seemed to be one, 
 deviated distinctly at that moment. The 
 man had begun to feel a little impatient of 
 this happy idleness. The honeymoon was 
 to him only a beautiful interruption to a 
 busy career. He could not look upon it as 
 an interlude in the music of his life. It 
 was more like a theme on too high a plane 
 to be always maintained. The Wedding 
 March must soon give place to a symphony 
 in which many movements are played in 
 different time and key. 
 
 But to Corona these rapturous weeks had 
 become the necessary expression of exist- 
 ence. She remembered with remorse how 
 she had once laughed at a little bride who 
 cried all day the first time that her husband
 
 216 THE SURRENDER OF PUELV1R 
 
 left her to go to his business in town. Co- 
 rona could not even imagine how it would 
 be to live if Alexander were not always 
 with her. Corona was not a new woman. 
 She had no career. She had a genius for 
 home. She was a home - making, home- 
 loving soul. Her house had been more to 
 her than other people's houses, and now 
 her happiness she turned and looked at 
 her husband. She was convinced that he 
 was more to her than any other husband to 
 any other woman in the world. There was 
 something in this rhapsody, after all. Wo- 
 men like Corona make the honeymoons that 
 last. 
 
 "Shall I hitch The Lady up, or turn her 
 aout?" 
 
 Zero's drawling voice broke the spell that 
 the one reflective day in the week so easily 
 casts upon loving hearts. The two looked 
 at each other doubtfully; but as is fre- 
 quently the case, the smallest member of 
 the family decided the question. Matthew 
 Launcelot, who, as has been said, hated the
 
 THE SURRENDER OF PUELVIR 217 
 
 horse with all the enmity of which a black 
 and tan heart is capable, at the mention of 
 her name began to bark jealously. This 
 disturbance effectually broke in upon the 
 family peace, and like an interrupted chord 
 it could not easily be found again. 
 
 "We might as well take a ride," said 
 Alexander. "You may hitch her up, Zero. 
 Put her in the beach wagon, and we '11 take 
 you over to see your mother." 
 
 Puelvir was left alone. She sat down on 
 the new, little piazza that Mr. Hensleigh 
 had built for her, and which, by the way, 
 had almost won her heart over to him, and 
 proudly surveyed "her house," incidentally 
 condescending to notice the scenery. Puel- 
 vir wore a white cambric dress decorated 
 with green four-leaved clovers, and a fresh 
 white apron. Her brown neck was made 
 the browner by one of the white cotton lace 
 ornaments favored by her kind on Sundays, 
 but a little band of green velvet around her 
 throat relieved this effect. Her hair was
 
 218 THE SURRENDER OF PUELVJR 
 
 crimped. Her eyes were happy, her mouth 
 was kind, and Puelvir looked uncommonly 
 well. 
 
 A crisp noise on the pine needles in the 
 path through the grove suddenly attracted 
 Puelvir's attention. She looked up. A 
 man was coming toward the house. "It's 
 a tramp! " thought Puelvir. She called on 
 Matthew Launcelot, her natural protector, 
 but Matthew had basely deserted her for a 
 gray squirrel, and was half a mile away in 
 the woods. Puelvir whisked into the kitchen 
 and bolted the door. But when she gave, 
 through the window, a second look at the 
 intruder, she perceived that the tramp wore 
 a high silk hat, pearl trousers, and a long- 
 tailed black coat. Tan gloves covered his 
 hands, and in one of them he swung a hand- 
 some malacca cane. When he saw her in 
 the window, which she was locking as rap- 
 idly as possible, he smiled and lifted his 
 hat two feet from his head. Puelvir's heart 
 leaped above her cotton lace, and thumped 
 against the green velvet ribbon at her
 
 THE SURRENDER OF PUELVIR 219 
 
 throat. The engineer of the tug stood be- 
 fore her in his Sunday clothes. 
 
 " Why, land ! " she said, flinging up the 
 window. "You don't say! I thought you 
 was a tramp. I was just settin' the critter 
 on to you." 
 
 "How do you like it here in this God- 
 forsaken place?" he asked, carefully de- 
 positing his tall hat on the window-sill and 
 vigorously wiping his face. 
 
 "Well/' replied Puelvir, "I miss my 
 hogshead and my clothes-post. But we 've 
 got a pump 'n' hot water." 
 
 "Won't you let a feller in? " pleaded the 
 caller. 
 
 "I mought and I moughtent," said the 
 woman judicially. The engineer tried the 
 door, and, finding it bolted, made as if he 
 were about to climb in by the window. At 
 this Puelvir flushed red. 
 
 "You keep your distance and set out 
 there where you belong!" Puelvir 's voice 
 sounded sharp, but her eyes danced. " My 
 folks are all out. I 'm alone, an' you can't
 
 220 THE SURRENDER OF PUELVIR 
 
 come in nohow. It 's agin the rules. 
 What 'che come for, anyway? " 
 
 "Well," answered the engineer slowly, 
 "I felt kinder hungry, an' I wanted some 
 more of them griddle cakes." 
 
 "Griddle cakes! I don't fry griddle 
 cakes Sundays for nobody." Puelvir smiled 
 expansively. "But I '11 see if I can't hunt 
 ye up some cold vittles. You 'd better set 
 down." Puelvir gave her dress a little 
 flounce and disappeared into the pantry. 
 
 The engineer looked after her, and bit 
 the ends of his heavy black mustache dubi- 
 ously. "She 's a hummer, she is," he mut- 
 tered to himself, "an' no mistake." 
 
 But presently she came back, carrying 
 with great care a cut-glass dish, in which a 
 white, frosted work of art floated in a deli- 
 cious sea of yellow custard. This tempting 
 trifle was intended for the family's supper; 
 but not having been acquainted with their 
 privileges, they would not miss their loss. 
 The engineer disposed of the floating island 
 with admiration too deep for words. Per-
 
 THE SURRENDER OF PUELV1R 221 
 
 haps Corona's silver spoon and her best 
 Dresden saucer had something to do with 
 the feeling of luxurious comfort that began 
 to inundate the engineer's heart. 
 
 "By the great horn spoon, but you can 
 jest everlastingly beat the Dutch a-cook- 
 in' ! " The visitor drew his chair up as 
 close to the window as possible, and bent 
 in. "Ye know," he said, looking at her 
 boldly with admiring eyes, "I said aboard 
 the tug I was a-comin' for some more o' 
 them griddle cakes, an' then I was a-comin' 
 for you. I reckon ye didn't think I meant 
 it. But I did. That soft stuff is a sight 
 better 'n cakes; and here I be." 
 
 "Oh, you be, be you?" said Puelvir 
 jauntily. "That takes two. What are 
 you goin' to do about it? " Puelvir took 
 the empty dishes, and appeared to carry 
 them to the sink with great calmness. But 
 in reality she felt as if the old world were 
 spinning around her middle - aged head. 
 Her nautical hero watched her with set lips. 
 
 "Unbolt that door! " he demanded.
 
 222 THE SURRENDER OF PUELVIR 
 
 "I won't," said Puelvir, turning on the 
 hot water. 
 
 "You keep me out here like a tramp." 
 
 "You behave like one." 
 
 "You need n't think I 'm hoofin' it way 
 up here this hot day for nothin', miss," the 
 engineer exploded. "Open that door, or 
 I '11 bust the whole shebang in ! " 
 
 "Ye don't catch me!" retorted Puelvir 
 with a toss of her head. 
 
 "I don't, hey?" Before Puelvir could 
 realize what had happened, her visitor had 
 vaulted in through the open window, and 
 had taken her in his mighty arms. He 
 gave her a resounding kiss. "I thought ye 
 said it took two. There are times when it 
 don't take more 'n one, an' that 's a man 
 with his mind made up." 
 
 Puelvir struggled and screamed. "Mur- 
 der ! Help ! Fire ! Tramps ! Let me go ! " 
 
 "Certainly," said the engineer, "if you 
 want to." He opened his arms, and Puel- 
 vir sank upon a chair breathless, 
 
 "What," she gasped, "what would my
 
 THE SURRENDER OF PUELVIR 223 
 
 folks say if they cotched us in here with the 
 door locked ? Unbolt that 'ere door, quick ! " 
 
 "They'd say," said the engineer, lei- 
 surely unfastening the door and opening it, 
 "that I was a mighty lucky feller to get ye, 
 an' they 'd give us a blessin'. I was calcu- 
 latin' we 'd get spliced this fall, if you 've 
 no objections." 
 
 "I have," panted Puelvir. 
 
 "Name 'em!" The engineer stood over 
 her. "I'll 'bide by 'em all." 
 
 "If that's so, there ain't no use my 
 namin' of 'em." Puelvir 's head drooped. 
 
 "I notice," said the engineer soberly, 
 touching the sleeve of her. dress with real 
 delicacy, and dropping on one knee so that 
 his face could be near to hers, "that you 've 
 got four-leaf clovers on your gown. Call it 
 good luck, gal dear, won't you? Call it 
 luck for two." 
 
 Puelvir glanced timidly at her lover's 
 face. She saw his eyes tender with a depth 
 of feeling that was rare to men of his hard 
 life. She bent slightly toward him, and
 
 224 THE SURRENDER OF PUELVIR 
 
 this time, when he took her in his arms, 
 she did not object. 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Hensleigh drove home in 
 the early dusk. Zero climbed out, and 
 went to The Lady's head. Matthew ran 
 from the woods. Puelvir came from the 
 house, and in the presence of the assem- 
 bled family she uttered these words : 
 
 "Well, Miss Corona, he's come, an' 
 I 've up 'n' gone 'n' done it. I 've give 
 my word. I 'm goin' to be married come 
 October." 
 
 "Dear me, Puelvir!" expostulated Co- 
 rona. 
 
 "Well, I am. But I told him he need n't 
 expect to hev me till you go for the winter. 
 I wouldn't leave you nohow, not fur no 
 man. Besides, I told him he 'd got to give 
 up tuggin' summers an' go to the Grand 
 Banks fishin'. I wouldn't look at him 
 'thout I stuck by you summers, says I. He 
 said he don't favor fishin', but he 'd com- 
 permise on a Bar Harbor steamer. So that
 
 THE SURRENDER OF PUELVIR 225 
 
 fetched me, for I took it kinder thought- 
 ful of him. I won't give up nary one nor 
 t'other, so there, now! I 've fixed ye both." 
 
 Alexander and Corona stood alone to- 
 gether in the sea-scented, resinous dusk. 
 
 "What shall we do without her? " asked 
 Corona. "But I suppose we '11 board win- 
 ters, and can get along." 
 
 "I don't intend to board any longer than 
 we can help," Alexander replied quietly. 
 "I want my own home. Don't you?" 
 
 They looked out over the black pine 
 woods toward the harbor. Hensleigh walked 
 to the end of the piazza to close a blind. 
 
 " Come ! " he called. " Come and see ! " 
 
 Corona hurried to him. Her eyes fol- 
 lowed the gesture of his hand. Between 
 the branches of a tall pine a red eye faded 
 and burned faded and burned. 
 
 "It 's my lighthouse! " cried Corona rap- 
 turously. "It 's the flashlight on the Point. 
 I have missed it so ! Oh, you dear old red 
 light! Now I feel perfectly contented."
 
 226 THE SURRENDER OF PUELVIR 
 
 To Corona the crimson light had always 
 seemed like the heart of the sea. Now it 
 seemed like the heart of a home. 
 
 She lifted her face to her husband. 
 
 "Fun is good, Truth is better, and Love 
 is best of all," quoted Alexander softly. 
 Silently they clasped and kissed. 
 
 "I used to think Paradise was the house," 
 she whispered. "Now I find it is you." 
 
 "No, no! it is you! " he protested. 
 
 "It took us both to find it, dear." 
 
 "And it will take us both to keep it," he 
 answered her, "for God meant it to be so."
 
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