H IRomance of fisherman s flslanfc 
 
 BY 
 
 EDITH A. SAWYER 
 
 With a Foreword by HARRIET PRESCOTT SPOFFORF 
 
 Oh, is it not to \viden man 
 
 Stretches the sea?" 
 
 Sidney Lamer 
 
 BENJ. H. SANBORN & CO. 
 
 BOSTON, U. S. A 
 1899
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1899, 
 BY EDITH A. SAWYER. 
 
 PRESS OF SAMUBL USHEK. 
 BOSTON, MASS.
 
 Uo tbe Members 
 
 OF THE SAMOSET ISLAND ASSOCIATION, AND TO ALL WHO HAVE 
 
 SHARED IN THE HOSPITALITY OF THE ANNUAL MEETINGS 
 
 ON FISHERMAN S ISLAND, THIS STORY, FOUNDED 
 
 LARGELY UPON HISTORICAL FACT, 
 
 IS DEDICATED. 
 
 17-17014
 
 A FOREWORD. 
 
 The coves and indents, the bays and river-mouths, along 
 the coast of Maine, are a part of my earliest memories. All 
 the lovely region seems to me still a sort of fairyland which, 
 when a little child, was all my own. Through its bewilder 
 ing waters I made repeated voyages, sitting on the deck of 
 the packet-ship by day, tented by blue heaven, ringed about 
 with blue sea; here, on dark nights, I was carried in sailors 
 arms down long wharves, rowed out upon the dim swell to 
 the one light visible in an immense blackness, and handed 
 up the gangway, trembling with awe at the unfamiliar 
 greatness of the world ; here, on bright lonesome mornings, 
 I was rocked in the schooner Girls from reach to reach of 
 the beautiful St. Croix; or on another day, when the swift 
 Huntress could not make the Eastport wharf in the low 
 tide and sudden tempest, we went ashore in boats to cross 
 fields of wet seaweed, with the needles of the rain in our 
 faces. I can still feel the cool salt breath there steal in from 
 outer deeps, and see it draw a film across the stars. I can 
 still hear the cry of the great winds, with storm upon their 
 wings, sweeping in from reefs and ledges, singing their high 
 death-song of wreck and drowning men. The rafts, the 
 sun-soaked hulls and tarry ropes of the coasters, the light 
 houses, the islands whose primeval pines stood like dark 
 sentinels and whose sea-edges were fringed with tender 
 green of dipping birch and willow the elf-like sails flitting 
 
 5
 
 here and there, the great ships taking sun and shadow and 
 stealing away like grey ghosts, the gloom of cliff and steep, 
 the rolling fogs pierced by a red flame of sunset, the vast 
 tossing stretches of live sunshine and azure and foam, of 
 rose and silver, of violet mists whose dim distances veiled a 
 still farther and yet undiscovered country all these remain 
 in my recollection, clothed with an atmosphere, half dream, 
 half reality, of vivid beauty, that makes the wild sea-region 
 all to me that a land-locked Arcady or Tempe has been to 
 the fancy of poets and singers from the early days to this. 
 
 Kind reader, may you find in the sweet, strong, fine story 
 of Mary Cameron, set in the scenery of the coast of Maine, 
 with its added wealth of humanity, of love and sorrow and 
 joy, all of this gentle enchantment, too ! 
 
 HARRIET PRESCOTT SPOFFORD. 
 
 Newburyport) Mass., June 7, 1899.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAP. PAGE. 
 
 I. FISHERMAN S ISLAND i 
 
 II. THE FIRST ANNUAL MEETING 14 
 
 III. INFLUENCES 23 
 
 IV. WINTER ISOLATION 35 
 
 V. SECOND VISIT OF ISLAND OWNERS ... 42 
 
 VI. SUMMER DAYS 60 
 
 VII. WIND AND WRECK 73 
 
 VIII. "OUT OF THE DEEP" 89 
 
 IX. UP MARCH HILL 92 
 
 X. THE HEALING OF THE SEA 103 
 
 XI. NEW SCENES FOR OLD 110 
 
 XII. KNOWLEDGE AND FEELING 127 
 
 XIII. AWAKENING 143 
 
 XIV. " THE BEST Is YET TO BE " 161 
 
 XV. MANIFOLD CHANGES 174 
 
 XVI. HELP FROM MAN TO MAN 186 
 
 XVII. "LovE TOOK UP THE HARP OF LIFE" . 191
 
 MARY CAMERON: 
 
 A ROMANCE OF FISHERMAN S ISLAND. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 " O, it s a snug little island! 
 A right little, tight little island!" 
 
 Thomas Dibden. 
 
 T I iHERE was a hush and stillness about the late 
 -*- July afternoon. The flood-tide came up against 
 the rocks with a faint murmur. A motionless jellyfish 
 floated in the clear water close to the shore. The sun, 
 disappearing behind the trees on Southport Island, 
 touched their tops with gold. Far away, homeward- 
 bound fishing boats moved slowly along. Faint vio 
 let-gray clouds hung over the southern horizon ; above, 
 the salmon-colored sky shaded to pale blue, growing 
 into deep blue overhead. Across the still waters the 
 air came with a soft sea fragrance. 
 
 The gold on the tree tops changed to bronze, then 
 russet. The sails in the distance took on a yellow 
 tinge. The sea color deepened into an exquisite blue,
 
 2 MARY CAMERON: A ROMANCE 
 
 with gleams of pale yellow. Just as the sun set, the 
 reel rays shone out from Ram Island lighthouse. 
 
 A tall, sinewy man stood on the Fisherman s Island 
 wharf ready to catch the line from the in-coming cat- 
 boat. His spare figure was sharply outlined against 
 the somber gray rock behind. He wore high rubber 
 boots drawn up over snuff-colored trousers, a yellow 
 oil-skin jacket, and a black sou easter ; his rolled-back 
 collar revealed a strong neck, and his pushed-up sleeves 
 brought to view marvelously tattoed arms, on which 
 the muscles stood out like cords. He was bronzed 
 almost to copper color by exposure to sun, wind, and 
 storm. The gray stubble of a close-cut beard left 
 visible the square outline of his jaw and chin ; a 
 heavy gray moustache hung over his mouth. Scanty 
 gray hair showed behind his ears and under his sou 
 easter. A large nose, high cheek bones, shaggy eye 
 brows, under which were clear, keen, dark blue eyes 
 all marked a man of simple life and rugged force. 
 
 u Here we are, father, safe and sound ! " exclaimed 
 the bright-faced girl who was holding the rudder while 
 the tall, lithe skipper eased the boat along the wharf. 
 " We ve had a splendid sail. I bought my new dress, 
 and here s a letter for you. Jack, you bring the
 
 OF FISHERMAN S ISLAND. 6 
 
 bundles, all but my dress, I ll take that," she said, as 
 she jumped out, the boat made fast. " Come on, 
 father ; what s in your letter ? " 
 
 "Oh, that ll keep till we get to the house. Run 
 along an show Aunt Hetty your new gown ; I ex 
 pect she s as pertikelar to see it as you be to have 
 her. I 11 help Jack moor the boat." 
 
 "No, come now, dear daddy," insisted the girl; 
 and he went. 
 
 The tide was out, leaving the little cove half bare. 
 Great dark masses of seaweed covered the rocks be 
 low high- water mark, and gave a gruesome effect to 
 the surrounding flats. The cliff, along which the path 
 ran from the wharf to the house, rose abrupt and 
 steep, of heavy rock with deep, lengthwise fissures at 
 the wharf end, then sloped into a line of sand beach 
 around the cove, just beyond which, on high ground, 
 stood the little house, toned with nature s homely gray 
 and russet. 
 
 There was something joyous, spring-like in the girl s 
 figure as she walked on ahead, occasionally having to 
 wait for her father ; she stood tall, erect, like a young 
 pine tree, as if she had all the elements of support in 
 herself.
 
 4 MARY CAMERON: A ROMANCE 
 
 " Aunt Hetty s getting supper for us, sure as you 
 live, " she said; "there s smoke coming out of the 
 chimney. She did n t need to, and she 11 be cross as 
 two sticks afterwards to pay for it." 
 
 "Hush, Mary, you mustn t talk that way. Your 
 aunt means all right." 
 
 " Yes, I know it," answered the girl, with quick 
 compunction. "And I ve brought her some calico 
 for aprons ; that will please her better than anything." 
 She vanished into the house, leaving her father on the 
 little front porch to read his letter. 
 
 Presently she came out, her hat off, her wind-tossed 
 brown hair curling all around her face, and a large red 
 apron tied over her blue flannel best dress, saying as 
 she sat down and leaned against her father s knee, " I 
 declare I m tired. It was hard work waiting around 
 Boothbay and buying things. And Aunt Hetty is 
 cross ; but she would n t let me stay and help. Who s 
 your letter from ? " Letters were great events on 
 Fisherman s Island. 
 
 "Judge Weston. He s comin here next week with 
 two or three of the owners, an mebbe their wives. 
 Can t we give em a fish-chowder dinner?" 
 
 " Yes, I suppose so," said the girl thoughtfully.
 
 OF FISHERMAN S ISLAND. 5 
 
 " Aunt Hetty will help, I guess, and we can borrow 
 her chairs and dishes." 
 
 " An the judge says probably he an Rob Westou 11 
 want to stay a day or two longer," went on the old 
 captain; "you remember that nephew of his, don t 
 you ? Used to live over to Boothbay that tall, yel 
 low-haired fellow who always was makin picters ; 
 he s try in to get a livin by it now." 
 
 Mary remembered. Rob Weston had been about 
 five years ahead of her in the Boothbay schools. He 
 had gone to live with Judge Weston after his parents 
 died, and when he came back to visit he called her 
 " Miss" Mary. 
 
 " I d just as soon the nephew warn t comin ," said 
 Captain Cameron with a sidelong glance at his daugh 
 ter. She was sitting by his side now, holding his big 
 knotted hand in hers. " I don t like these city chaps." 
 
 When will a man learn that if he wants to keep 
 anything from a woman he must not even think of it 
 in her presence ? 
 
 They sat there for a long time, planning about the 
 visitors. There was no twilight. The moon, high in 
 the east before the sun went down, had blended day 
 and night.
 
 6 MARY CAMERON: A ROMANCE 
 
 "Ain t you ever comin to get your supper?" 
 sounded a high pitched voice just behind them. " The 
 cream o tartay biscuits been done this five minutes, 
 an I m goin home." Without waiting a reply, Aunt 
 Hetty turned, and with stiffly erect figure, stalked 
 grimly along the path to the smaller house near the 
 wharf, the skirt of her scant wrapper catching in at 
 her heels, a calico apron over her head. 
 
 Since the first of May the two Cameron families 
 had lived on Fisherman s Island, which lies out in 
 the open sea three miles " as the crow flies" southeast 
 from Boothbay Harbor, on the Maine coast a long, 
 narrow island scantily wooded. The circumstances 
 of their coming here were somewhat out of the 
 ordinary. 
 
 The island had been bought by about a dozen 
 gentlemen lawyers and prominent men who the 
 previous summer, cruising along the Maine coast, had 
 liked the quaint barren island, found the property in 
 the market, and, forming an association, bought it 
 forthwith, electing as president Judge Levi Westou, 
 both in years and honor their senior member. That 
 winter, in the Maine legislature, where some of the 
 owners chanced to be serving their State s interests,
 
 OF FISHERMAN S ISLAND. 7 
 
 the association was incorporated as the " Samoset 
 Island Association of Boothbay," and a liberal charter 
 granted. But, though legally " Samoset Island" now, 
 the name of " Fisherman s " has always clung to the 
 island. 
 
 Then the matter slipped from the minds of most of 
 the owners. 
 
 In April, however, Judge Weston bethought himself 
 of the approaching summer, and partly to get a breath 
 of good Maine air, partly carrying out a half-formed 
 project, went to Boothbay. 
 
 As the steamer Lincoln drew up to the wharf, 
 Judge Weston s eyes fell on David Cameron s wea 
 ther-beaten figure. "Just the man, yes," he told 
 himself 
 
 " I have come to see you, Cameron," he said, shak 
 ing hands heartily as he stepped from the gang plank. 
 "How has the world been using you?" 
 
 The two men had not met for several years. 
 
 "It s been a hard pull, Judge, a hard pull," the 
 other answered. 
 
 " Come up to the Boothbay House with me," said 
 the judge ; and in his habitual manner, going at once 
 to the gist of the matter, he explained that he and his
 
 8 MARY CAMERON: A ROMANCE 
 
 friends had bought Fisherman s Island and wanted 
 somebody to live there to look after things. " Will 
 you go, Cameron?" he asked. 
 
 Captain Cameron knew the island well. Life would 
 be lonely and isolated there. But times were hard ; 
 he had lost his best sailboat last season through the 
 carelessness of " rusticators " as the native popula 
 tion sometimes call the summer visitors and the 
 winter s catch of fish had been small ; besides, he was 
 growing too old for hard work now. " If Mary 11 go, 
 I will," he said finally, after they had talked the mat 
 ter well over. "She s had a good bit of schooliu , 
 bout all Boothbay gives, an she s mostly content to 
 be long with her old father. I 11 come round an 
 tell you in the mornin ." 
 
 After the supper dishes were washed that night, 
 Captain Cameron told Mary of Judge Westou s offer. 
 Brave girl that she was, and womanly, too, beyond her 
 eighteen years, she faced the prospect unflinchingly, 
 for she knew what a relief from mone} 7 care the 
 change would bring to her father. 
 
 " We 11 go," he said, the next morning, hunting up 
 Judge Weston early. " Mary s the most superior girl 
 in Boothbay," he declared, with a burst of pride.
 
 OF FISHERMAN S ISLAND. 9 
 
 "She s got more sense in her little finger than a 
 dozen other girls put together." 
 
 " She has good pluck, anyway," returned Judge 
 Weston, "and that she ought to have, being your 
 daughter," he added affectionately, for the two men 
 had been boys together in the old town and had never 
 lost touch with one another, widely different as their 
 lives were. 
 
 There s no reason why this should n t be a life- 
 berth for you, if you want it," said Judge Weston. 
 The two men had walked down to the wharf together, 
 for Judge Weston had to take the morning boat. 
 " The salary will come regularly, and you ought to 
 get something out of the lobstering and fishing. I 
 shall be down with some of the other owners this sum 
 mer, and I have made a contract for a good wharf to 
 be built on the north end of the island. You will 
 have near neighbors in the lighthouse people on Ram 
 Island." The Lincoln gave a final whistle. "Well, 
 good-by, David." 
 
 " Good-by ! God bless you, Judge," said Cameron. 
 And the Lincoln was off. 
 
 The two Cameron brothers, David and Donald, had 
 lived next-door neighbors in Boothbay all their mar-
 
 10 MART CAMERON: A ROMANCE 
 
 ried lives. Both were sea captains, and neither had 
 been very successful, for competition runs high in the 
 coastwise trade these days. 
 
 The odds had seemed especially against David. 
 A few years before he had been obliged to abandon 
 his schooner, which went ashore in a gale, and he had 
 barely escaped with his life. Shortly after, his wife 
 died. Broken by these misfortunes, he settled down 
 to fishing and boat building, and kept a small yacht 
 for pleasure parties. 
 
 Captain Donald Cameron still sailed the Flying 
 Kestrel, and was away most of the time. It was often 
 insinuated that he liked better going to sea than being 
 in hot water at home, for his wife Mehitable Aunt 
 Hetty, as Mary called her was one of the people 
 who consider it their mission in life to keep others up 
 to a high level of conduct by constant criticism. 
 
 " Why can t Jack and I go and live in the other 
 house on the island?" Aunt Hetty demanded when 
 she was told of the proposed change. "Mary needs 
 lookin after ; Jack can keep on buildin boats, and 
 goodness knows how you d ever manage out there all 
 by yourselves, anyway. It ain t a very sightly place, 
 but Jack s father ain t at home enough to have it
 
 OF FISHERMAN S ISLAND. H 
 
 matter where I live," she added, with a touch of bit 
 terness. Her face showed that she had lost much of 
 the song out of life. 
 
 There were evident advantages in having another 
 family on the island, and David knew the good heart 
 that lay behind Aunt Hetty s hasty tongue ; so he 
 wrote for permission. It was granted, and the house 
 hold goods of the two families were speedily moved 
 into their new quarters. 
 
 The snug, natural harbor formed by the cove and 
 the smooth tawny sand beach on the north of the 
 island gave safe anchorage for their small fleet of 
 boats. The two houses were almost within speaking 
 distance of each other. Aunt Hetty and Jack settled 
 themselves in the smaller one, close to the new wharf 
 a little box of a house. 
 
 The other, a plain wooden story-and-a-half house, 
 more than a hundred years old, looked barren and 
 uninviting indeed when Mary and her father entered 
 it. Two moderate-sized rooms, one on each side of 
 the tiny entry-way, and two rooms overhead, an ell 
 kitchen and a shed, was the extent of the houseroom. 
 But Mary s deft fingers did much to transform the 
 place. The sunny kitchen was soon shining with care ;
 
 12 MARY CAMERON: A ROMANCE 
 
 leading off from it was the dining room, and here 
 Mary had her sewing machine. Across the entry -way 
 the best room held state, full of old furniture ; a large 
 cabinet was filled with curiosities and knickknacks 
 from over the seas ; on the walls hung two marine 
 pictures, one of Captain Cameron s ship under full 
 sail, the other of Hong Kong Harbor, a few samplers 
 worked by Mary s mother, and a steel engraving of 
 Abraham Lincoln, " one of the biggest men that ever 
 lived," said Captain Cameron. There was no carpet, 
 but an inheritance of braided rugs covered the floor. 
 With Jack s help, Mary took down the fireboard 
 which covered the huge, high fireplace opening into 
 the stout central chimney. On the left side an open 
 cupboard built into the wall furnished a place for their 
 odds and ends of rare old Eastern china, on the right 
 was the delight of her heart, a " speak-a-bit " cor 
 ner or ingle nook the tradition had come down from 
 remote Scottish ancestry formed by a wooden settle 
 which extended the short distance between the fire 
 place and the south window. The room had three 
 windows the north looking out over the sheltered 
 cove harbor, the south toward Seguin, and the west 
 over to Squirrel Island and Southport.
 
 OF FISHERMAN S ISLAND. 13 
 
 Mary held a housewarming in the best room, invit 
 ing the other family, one damp May evening after 
 they were well settled. "I m glad we are oat here 
 just by ourselves," said home-loving Jack as they sat 
 around the soft blazing driftwood fire. 
 
 "Mary, it s dretful extravagant havin this big 
 fire," Aunt Hetty protested; "you ll burn a half a 
 cord of wood every time." 
 
 " Never rnind, Aunt Hetty," answered Mary gaily. 
 "We ve got the whole Atlantic Ocean for our wood 
 pile."
 
 14 MsUtY CAMERON: A ROMANCE 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 " There is no such thing as chance, and what seems to us 
 Merest accident, springs from the deepest source of 
 destiny. 
 
 Schiller. 
 
 HOW many of those folks is comin , do you 
 s pose ? " Aunt Hetty s voice was pitched 
 higher than usual. 
 
 "Oh, six or eight," answered Mary, pausing from 
 her sweeping to look out of the western window, 
 " and I hope they re going to have a good day." 
 
 "I sh d think they might have sent more notice," 
 sniffed Aunt Hetty. " Serve em right if it did rain. 
 The almanik says look out for rain about this time." 
 She took the frying pan off the stove, and walked 
 with quick, nervous steps into the pantry. The 
 doughnuts, crisp and brown, were piled high in a pan. 
 Fresh loaves of bread and crocks of cookies filled the 
 pantry shelves. 
 
 " I in pretty near beat out ; here we ve done nothing 
 but work, work, for three solid days, gettin ready, and 
 now likely s not it 11 rain, and they can t come after 
 all, more s the pity," she went on, inconsistently.
 
 OF FISHERMAN S ISLAND. 15 
 
 "You didn t need to help; I could have got along 
 without you," answered Mary. There was a touch 
 of Scotch fire in her make-up, and she banged the 
 kitchen door behind her. 
 
 " That niece of mine has been more trouble to me 
 since her mother died than my Jack has all his life," 
 Aunt Hetty invariably told her Boothbay friends. " I 
 don t know why, but she never agrees with me. She s 
 dretful headstrong. Young people nowadays is 
 amazin cocksure of everything." Yet Aunt Hetty 
 devoted herself unsparingly to Mary, and she had 
 taken hold with right good will in the preparations for 
 the owners visit. 
 
 It was about ten o clock. The wind, easterly in 
 the early morning, was shifting to southwest and the 
 low mist rolling seaward. 
 
 "Aunt Hetty, quick ! Here s the steamer 
 coming," cried Mary, running in from the front 
 porch. 
 
 " This ain t no time to be dawdlin round watchin 
 boats," replied Aunt Hetty grimly. "I ve got to 
 start the chowder goin , for I suppose they 11 be most 
 starved when they get here, like everybody else. 
 There s a sight of work to be done."
 
 16 MAST CAMERON: A ROMANCE 
 
 Mary, disregarding the implied suggestion, hurried 
 back to the porch. 
 
 "See if you can make out what boat it is," said 
 Captain Cameron, handing the marine glasses to Jack, 
 " your eyes are younger than mine." All three were 
 watching. 
 
 "It s the Samoset," said Jack, who could name 
 almost every craft on their ocean highway, miles off. 
 
 Mary disappeared to change her dress, and then set 
 out for the wharf with her father, to meet the party. 
 Jack vanished. 
 
 A sudden feeling of dismay seized the girl. These 
 people, all but Judge Westou and Rob, were stran 
 gers ; and Aunt Hetty had announced, "You ve got 
 to look out for the company ; I ain t the lady of the 
 house." 
 
 When Captain Cameron went down the sluiceway 
 to help fend off the boat, Mary hung back, uncom 
 fortably conscious that she was the target of many 
 eyes. The heavy gray rocks behind the girl brought 
 out in vivid relief her tall figure, which held a certain 
 grace, though there was as yet little of the softening 
 touch of maturity. On nearer view her face was 
 attractive. The damp wind had ruffled her brown hair
 
 OF FISHERMAN S ISLAND. 17 
 
 into clinging disarray, and her brown eyes looked out 
 with a direct, appealing glance ; the sensitive mouth and 
 firm, round chin showed determination and delicacy. 
 
 Captain Cameron s face glowed with genuine hos 
 pitality as Judge Weston introduced his companions. 
 Mary stayed in the background, and felt more than 
 ever like an awkward child when Judge Weston, lead 
 ing her by the hand out before the entire company, 
 said, " This is my godchild, Miss Mary Weston 
 Cameron, the presiding genius of the island." Then 
 he led the way with her to the house, past a delightful 
 confusion of boats, lobster traps, and fishing gear. 
 Last of all to step up on the little porch were a tall, 
 well-built young man and the most beautiful girl, 
 Mary thought, that she had ever seen. The man, 
 whom Mary recognized instantly as Robert Weston, 
 came up to her. "How do you do, Miss Mary? I 
 remember you in Boothbay long ago. Let me intro 
 duce you to Miss Kendall." 
 
 The girl said something conventional, her inde 
 finable air of superiority seemed to stifle Mary, 
 then she joined the group who were seating themselves 
 on the porch and the rocks around. Mary beat a 
 hasty retreat to the kitchen.
 
 18 MARY CAMERON: A ROMANCE 
 
 " Your chowder s ready," announced Captain Cam 
 eron, appearing at high noon round the side of the 
 house, with a preliminary toot of his fish horn. 
 
 Mary, heated and flushed, helped serve the dinner. 
 The hurry and strangeness of her position took her 
 thoughts from herself. She caught entertaining 
 snatches of conversation, and listened, wide-eyed, to 
 the novelty of toasts. Dinner over, the island owners 
 there were five of them here, one, a man well 
 known in the Senate of his country, spent an hour in 
 the quaint parlor, smoking and talking over plans for 
 a clubhouse, while the ladies, glad to escape from the 
 hot dining room, sat outside, listlessly waiting. Mary 
 joined them shyly, forgetting that Aunt Hetty was 
 toiling over the dishwashing ; and she covertly noticed 
 everything connected with these unknown people. 
 What wouldn t she give if she could only sit there so 
 calmly, gracefully, like Miss Kendall, taking part in 
 the chance talk, and looking (she said to herself, pas 
 sionately) " as I couldn t look if I tried a hundred 
 years." 
 
 Miss Kendall, who was evidently about Mary s own 
 age, had dark eyes, a fair, clear complexion, and was 
 daintily dressed from hat to shoes. The other girl,
 
 OF FISHERMAN S ISLAND. 19 
 
 with yellow hair, frank gray eyes, and a well-built, 
 strong-looking figure, was Miss Merrick, the picture of 
 good health and easy good nature. Both girls seemed 
 quiet ; but Mary noticed that their faces brightened 
 when the gentlemen joined the group. 
 
 " Now those of you who are good walkers would 
 better climb that hill and get a look at Monhegan 
 Island and Pemaquid, then come back round by way 
 of the south shore," said Judge Weston, seating him 
 self in an old straight-backed, flag-bottomed chair. 
 " I in too heavy and too short of breath for much 
 walking. Miss Mary will show you the way. You 
 go, too, Mrs. Sargent ; I will take care of little 
 Katharine." And the party started off, leaving the 
 five-year-old girl perched on Judge Weston s knee, 
 listening with big round eyes to the story of the old 
 Indian king Samoset, who used to cruise around the 
 island in a black boat on dark nights. 
 
 Mary, bareheaded, led the way up the winding path, 
 past the boathouse and clumps of tall raspberry 
 bushes. Rob Weston kept close pace with her, admir 
 ing with his artist s eye her lithe, elastic motion, for 
 long climbing over the rocks had made her as grace 
 ful and sure-footed as a deer. " I must sketch that
 
 20 MARY CAMERON: A ROMANCE 
 
 girl sometime," he said enthusiastically to Miss Ken 
 dall, falling behind for a moment. Eyes shining, 
 cheeks reddened with the exercise, hair wind-tumbled, 
 Mary made a suggestive picture as she stood on the 
 little pile of stones that marked the summit of the 
 island. Miss Kendall did not like her any the better 
 for it. 
 
 From the summit to the south shore was a good 
 twenty minute walk. Bordered with golden-rod and 
 white elder blossoms, the path ran along by the 
 marsh over the ridge to the bar, where Mary told 
 them the sea swept across in rough weather, making 
 two islands of the one on over the rocky pasture 
 end, until they came to the steep white rocks, the air 
 freshening ever, the noise of the sea beating down 
 their voices. Monhegan Island lay forty miles to the 
 left, Damariscove a few miles ahead, and Seguin well 
 off to the southwest all set in the brimming, exult 
 ing sea. 
 
 " Every breath you draw has a cool, invigorating 
 core to it," said Senator Kendall gratefully. He had 
 not been long away from stifling Washington. 
 
 But there was only time for a glance at the broad 
 panorama, for Mary, as her quick ear caught a far-
 
 OF FISHERMAN S ISLAND. 21 
 
 away whistle, exclaimed, "There comes the boat for 
 you," and they turned regretfully back. 
 
 On their return walk Miss Kendall tried to draw 
 Mary into conversation. " What can yon possibly find 
 to do out here on this lonely island? " she asked, with 
 languid interest. 
 
 " Plenty, every day," was Mary s laconic, loyal 
 reply. Ill at ease, self-conscious in the presence of 
 these two city girls, she now only wanted them to be 
 gone ; she was not like them. Drawn by an instinc 
 tive sympathy, however, she fell behind with Mrs. 
 Sargent, who showed so kind an interest that Mary 
 was led to talk freely about herself ; her heart warmed, 
 too, toward Mr. Loring John, the old judge called 
 him who shook hands cordially when he bade her 
 good-by, and said, " You have helped give us a happy 
 day, which I shall always remember." 
 
 " If you ve carried off some of the island s sand in 
 your shoes you 11 be comin back again ; it s a sure 
 sign," was Captain Cameron s farewell. 
 
 " Aye, aye, Captain, we 11 come many a time," said 
 Senator Kendall, standing, hat off, at the boat s stern. 
 
 Judge Weston and Rob remained. Supper was a 
 rather silent meal. Jack had not come in from hauling
 
 22 MARY CAMERON: A ROMANCE 
 
 lobster traps, Aunt Hetty was out of sorts and spoke 
 only to ask their wants, and Rob Weston ate with 
 a ravenous appetite. Captain Cameron and Judge 
 Weston talked spasmodically of the locality of Pente 
 cost Harbor, where, according to Hosier s narrative, 
 "the ship of Captain George Weymouth, the Arch 
 angel, lay at her moorings May 30, 1605, under an 
 island in the capacious and newly discovered haven." 
 Judge Weston was disposed to think the " island " 
 Fisherman s, the "haven" Boothbay Harbor. 
 
 Supper over, Mary started Aunt Hetty homeward. 
 "Poor, tired Aunt Hetty," she said to herself re 
 proachfully. Then she washed and set away the sup 
 per dishes, put some bread to rise, and crept off to 
 bed, miserably out of peace with herself and all the 
 world. 
 
 Down on the rocks by the water s edge, Rob Weston 
 was dreaming dreams of his art and seeing visions 
 of the future. He liked the sense of the great over 
 arching sky, the glinting stars, the untamed ocean 
 wearing itself restlessly against the rocks, each force 
 bounded by itself, pouring all its power into its own 
 mighty life.
 
 OF FISHERMAN S ISLAND. 23 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 " Speak a speech that no man knoweth, 
 Tree that sigheth, wind that blovveth, 
 Wave that floweth." 
 
 William Watson. 
 
 E limpid sea lay like an unclouded mirror the 
 -L next morning. Rob was out and up on the 
 island hilltop soon after breakfast to get the glory of 
 the morning light into his mind. But after a few 
 moments Mary, from the kitchen window, saw him 
 plunging with long strides down the hill. Out he 
 came where she was washing dishes, his blue eyes 
 shining, his thick, tawny-yellow hair rumpled from 
 his haste. 
 
 " Come on, Miss Mary, let s go for a row around 
 the island while it s calm." 
 
 "But I ve got all my morning work to do," she 
 answered, the rich color rising into her face. 
 
 "Oh, never mind! I ll help; it won t take us 
 long." And he whisked an apron from its peg, tied it 
 around his waist, and helped in such a boyish, bother 
 ing fashion that Mary, in self-defense as the last dish 
 was dried, said, " There, I 11 go now, but let s hurry
 
 24 MARY CAMERON: A ROMANCE 
 
 off, for if Aunt Hetty sees me she will find some 
 reason for my staying at home." 
 
 Mary s own boat, a trim little craft, painted green 
 below and blue above the water line to match the 
 sea and the sky, she explained was moored off the 
 old pier on the point. She jumped in first, pulled the 
 boat out by the stern line, unfastened it, and was 
 putting the oars in place when Rob brought the boat 
 in by the painter, stepped in, and taking possession of 
 the oars said, " At least you 11 let me do the rowing." 
 
 " Why, yes, if you want to." Mary s cheeks crim 
 soned. She had done something wrong, judging by 
 his tone. 
 
 Rob s long, steady strokes sent the boat swiftly 
 through the narrow channel on the north, separating 
 Fisherman s from Ram Island, that little rocky spot 
 where the lighthouse clung. The point rounded, he 
 let the boat drift with the outgoing tide. The water 
 was indescribably clear; looking into depths, he could 
 see shells and barnacle-studded rocks on the sandy 
 bottom twenty feet below. 
 
 Mary made no effort to talk. She was looking sea 
 ward now, and Rob Weston was looking at her. The 
 soft brown tarn o shauter cap which she wore deep-
 
 OF FISHERMAN S ISLAND. 26 
 
 ened the color in her eyes, her hair gleamed with warm 
 lights, and her brown blouse waist helped make a har 
 mony so complete that Rob vowed mentally to sketch 
 her that afternoon "if she ll let me." She was not 
 like other girls he knew. 
 
 "These are the Hypocrites," she said, suddenly 
 rousing herself as Rob rowed into one of the narrow 
 channels between the long ridges of white rock to 
 the east of the island. " Years ago a sea captain 
 ran his brig ashore here. He thought he was in deep 
 water, and that the white he saw away ahead was 
 a sand beach ; so he afterwards named the rocks 
 Hypocrites. " 
 
 A few clouds were in sight now, and curling tremors 
 of wind broke the serenity of the sea. When they 
 rounded the south shore, choppy waves were dashing 
 against the shelving white rocks. The boat began to 
 toss violently, yielding to the great living pulse of the 
 sea. They were dangerously near the long lines of 
 reef. Mary sat very quiet, with the habit of one ac 
 customed to boats. Rob threw off his cap, set him 
 self square at the work, and rowed around the point 
 without their taking in a drop of water. He had 
 been on the Varsity crew in college, and as he sat
 
 26 MARY CAMEEON: A ROMANCE 
 
 there opposite her, erect, flushed, victorious, it was 
 her turn to look at him. 
 
 The glimmering purple-green color of the sea, the 
 shifting clouds with their stir of life, absorbed Rob 
 into the impersonal condition common to the artist 
 nature, and woke, too, the touch of melancholy never 
 far away. Forgetting Mary, he was saying softly to 
 himself : 
 
 " Break, break, break, 
 
 On thy cold gray stones, O Sea, 
 And I would that my tongue could utter 
 The thoughts that arise in me ! " 
 
 44 That is from Tennyson, isn t it?" asked Mary 
 shyly. 
 
 " Yes ; what do you know about Tennyson? " came 
 the confusing question. 
 
 " Oh, I read his poems sometimes." 
 
 "What else do you read?" There was distinct 
 condescension in Rob s tone. 
 
 " Whatever comes my way," was her short answer. 
 And he could get nothing more than "yes " or " no " 
 from her. 
 
 Do you read much ? " 
 
 " Yes."
 
 OF FISHERMAN S ISLAND. 27 
 
 " Do you like living here?" 
 
 " Yes." She would not have said " no." 
 
 " Better than Boothbay ? " 
 
 " No," reluctantly. 
 
 " Do you like nature birds and such things? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 Rob gave it up as hopeless ; in fact, pulling along 
 the rough western shore against the tide was enough 
 to occupy his attention. Every now and then he stole 
 a glance at her as she sat there, immovable, petulant, 
 her mouth compressed into a straight red line, her 
 beautiful hair blowing about her face. "She s a 
 stubborn little thing," he said to himself. 
 
 When they reached the wharf he helped her out with 
 a great show of gallantry, saying, " I 11 see to fasten 
 ing the boat." She seemed relieved to let him, and 
 hurried off to the house. 
 
 Her mood changed at dinner, a scanty meal that 
 suffered because of her absence, and she talked 
 excitedly of her flowers, the sea gulls, fishhawks, 
 and her tame squirrels. She wore her new dress, 
 which Aunt Hetty had made, a bright plaid, with 
 broad lines of red, blue, green, and yellow. 
 
 " Heavens ! what a gown ! " said Rob to himself.
 
 28 MART CAMEEON: A ROMANCE 
 
 "Why hadn t I sketched her in that old brown rig 
 this morning? I can t get her now ! " 
 
 While Mary was hastily cooking the fish dinner, 
 Rob, out in the boathouse, had made friends with 
 Jack, and the two had agreed to go gunning. Jack 
 was a fine-faced lad of sixteen, with the far-away look 
 of the sea in his blue eyes ; a goodly youth, sun- 
 browned, strong, straight, and supple of limb. 
 
 Crack ! crack ! came the sound of their guns all 
 the long afternoon. Judge Weston had been looking 
 over law papers during the morning ; now, his after- 
 dinner pipe smoked, he was peacefully napping in 
 Mary s cushioned " speak-a-bit " corner. Captain 
 Cameron was off fishing. Aunt Hetty had kept away 
 from the house all day. Mary wandered about rest 
 lessly. 
 
 When the sun s rays began to slant across the 
 island, the two sportsmen came home down over the 
 hill. Mary ran out to meet them. " What luck did 
 you have ? " she asked eagerly. 
 
 She saw in a moment. There was a magnificent 
 great sea gull, its white breast torn and stained, two 
 beautiful herons with drooping heads, and one of her 
 gray squirrels.
 
 OF FISHERMAN S ISLAND, 29 
 
 "You dreadful, dreadful mail to kill my squir 
 rel!" she blazed at him, her face afire. "How 
 could you ! O Jack, why did you let him ! " 
 
 " Why, Miss Mary, I didn t know it was yours," 
 Rob said with real distress. In the zest of the shoot 
 ing he had forgotten Mary s story of the squirrels, 
 and seeing a good shot, although he was not out for 
 such small game, he had brought it down. 
 
 "They re all mine," she said, darting a defiant 
 glance at him, "and it s just because I ve tamed 
 them that they didn t keep out of your way." (Small 
 credit to my aim, thought Rob.) "It s all Jack s 
 fault ; he ought to have told you," she went on with 
 quick justice. 
 
 "I I didn t think you d mind just one," said 
 Jack lamely. 
 
 "Of course I do, you cowardly thing." Her anger 
 was breaking out again, and she ran into the house, 
 too proud to show any more feeling. 
 
 Later, she slipped over to Aunt Hetty s. "You 
 must come to supper," she insisted. And Aunt 
 Hetty was quite ready to forego her solitude. Jack 
 talked boats with Rob. Judge Weston praised the 
 clam stew and Mary s cooking, but she sat sullen,
 
 30 MARY CAMERON: A ROMANCE 
 
 unresponsive. The old man glanced at her keenly 
 from time to time. 
 
 Nineteen years ago that spring, when visiting 
 Boothbay, Judge Weston learned that a baby daugh 
 ter had come to David Cameron s home, and he had 
 asked to be godfather, with the privilege of naming 
 the child Mary for his mother. Ever since, even in 
 his busy existence, he had kept in touch with her 
 young life. As a baby, Mary wound her arms about 
 his neck, holding him with all her tiny strength when 
 it was time for him to go. She had grown shy in the 
 last years, for she seldom saw him, but he was con 
 tinually glorified in her young imagination. 
 
 There was many a charming side to this man s life. 
 He was a literary Bohemian, and in his bachelor quar 
 ters on Street, in Boston, there were rare old 
 
 volumes old friends with whom he loved to commune. 
 He had many idiosyncrasies, which a comfortable in 
 heritance and a good law practice in the past enabled 
 him to indulge ; and his personality was picturesque. 
 His bristling, bushy eyebrows and dark, piercing eyes 
 ornamented a fine head set on a rather heavy, thick-set 
 frame. In movement he was slow, and in dress care 
 less. His hats were a noticeable feature of his dress
 
 OF FISHERMAN S ISLAND. 31 
 
 a Panama straw in summer and a broad-brimmed 
 beaver in winter. His wit bubbled luminously, and 
 his cheerful ready smile made one feel always wel 
 come. Of an ardent and impulsive temperament, he 
 was fond of people, and felt life keenly. Yet he had 
 the calm philosophy of content ; others might do the 
 fretting and the worrying. His was the philosophy 
 that cultivates the humanities and encourages the 
 amenities of life, that helps lift the feet of the weary 
 and lighten the load of the afflicted. 
 
 As he sat smoking on the porch that evening in 
 the glowing twilight, the kind old man called Mary 
 to him, and began talking about life. Much that 
 he said ran counter to the girl s world of ideals, 
 for she was singularly childlike in her knowledge of 
 life ; but she entered into every situation with singular 
 intelligence and sympathy, having almost invariably 
 the right instinct. Then he turned the conversation 
 to herself. He had observed her closely these last 
 two days, and the instincts of fatherhood are strong 
 in thoughtful men. 
 
 "It is character that counts in this world, after 
 all, Mary. You must be true to your best self, the 
 best you can learn from people, from books, from the
 
 32 MARY CAMERON: A ROMANCE 
 
 Bible. Study and learn and observe all you can. 
 You will not always live here, cut off from the world, 
 though there is many a girl who would be glad of such 
 a comfortable home." 
 
 " How can I learn anything out here? " asked Mary 
 with a discontented sigh. 
 
 "Your father has a fair education, for he has kept 
 his eyes open going about the world ; he can help you, 
 and you can help Jack. When you have a chance, 
 notice how young ladies like Miss Kendall and Miss 
 Merrick carry themselves." Mary made inward protest. 
 
 " Try to be always bright and happy," he went on, 
 for he had noted her latent tendency to morbidness. 
 " Learn to make your own sunshine. A man likes to 
 come home to a sunshiny woman ; it helps him to the 
 brave attitude of life that Robert Louis Stevenson 
 writes about. It s a lonely life at best for a man or 
 a woman, without the anchor of a home lonelier for 
 a man, because a woman makes a home wherever she 
 hangs up her stocking bag. And what it means to a 
 man to come home at night to a cheerful, sunny 
 woman, only he knows who lias had to fight the hard 
 battle of life alone." 
 
 The judge stopped talking. Mary moved nearer.
 
 OF FISHERMAN S ISLAND. 33 
 
 and timidly put her hand in his. There is a silence 
 between friends that is more eloquent than words. 
 
 Ram Island light was sending its mild red rays over 
 the neighboring waters. The quiet waves lapped 
 against the rocks with a soothing murmur. Overhead 
 the watchful stars seemed to bend nearer, and the 
 air was full of the subtle fragrance of the sea. 
 
 Rob appeared in the doorway. "Uncle Levi, 
 you 11 be getting rheumatism out here," he remon 
 strated, "and you know we must start out early to 
 morrow." 
 
 Judge Weston roused himself from his reverie and 
 went in, first shaking hands warmly with Mary. 
 
 " Wait a minute, will you, Miss Mary," said Rob. 
 " I m awfully sorry that I shot your squirrel. I can t 
 bring him back to life, but Jack has promised to get 
 him stuffed for me over at Boothbay. Will you keep 
 the squirrel, and remember to forgive me?" 
 
 His earnest voice, the deference of his manner, 
 made longer resentment impossible, sore as Mary s 
 heart was. And she answered with a break in her 
 voice that he found bewitching, "I know you didn t 
 mean to do it. I will keep him to remember you by." 
 
 She held out her hand in token of forgiveness as
 
 34 MAEY CAMERON: A ROMANCE 
 
 she turned to go into the house. He took it with such 
 a close, lingering pressure that she was glad the dark 
 ness hid her suddenly burning cheeks. 
 
 The two guests were off to Boothbay early the next 
 morning, to connect with the Bath steamboat for 
 Boston. Why did the day seem so cheerless all at 
 once to Mary as she watched the vanishing figures ?
 
 OF FISHERMAN S ISLAND. 35 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 "In youth, beside the lonely sea, 
 Visions :md voices came to me." 
 
 Thomas Bailey Aldrich. 
 
 AFTER winter fairly set in, the Fisherman s Island 
 --V_ people found life, the mere living of it, quite 
 as much as they could manage, thrown so entirely as 
 they were upon their own resources. The weather 
 became the matter of first importance as happens 
 always with people living in isolated places ; the 
 changes of the sky and sea, the flitting of coasting 
 vessels to and fro, the visits of the sea fowl, sun 
 rise and sunset, the changing moon, the northern 
 lights, the wheeling constellations, made up the out 
 ward events of the days and weeks. 
 
 Mary had faced the thought of the winter, with its 
 solitude, bravely, but the finer balanced mind loses 
 elasticity and stagnates in such extreme isolation. 
 Aunt Hetty kept bustlingly busy from morn till night, 
 doing her daily housework with infinite care and scrup 
 ulousness, then using the short afternoon daylight for 
 sewing and the long evenings to knit stockings or
 
 36 MAR Y CAMERON: A ROMANCE 
 
 work on carpet rags. Captain Cameron and Jack 
 went the rounds of their hundred or more lobster pots 
 every morning, except in severest weather, and after 
 noons worked in the boat shop, where Captain Cam 
 eron was building a stout dory, and Jack remodeling 
 bis catboat the Kady. 
 
 The winter came hardest on Mary. Their little 
 house seemed almost to take care of itself. She 
 was too vigorous-natured to sit contentedly sewing 
 seams or knitting all day long ; there were no 
 visitors to come and no places for her to go save 
 to see Aunt Hetty, or occasionally, on fair, still 
 days, to Boothbay with her father or Jack on their 
 weekly trips for supplies. Once in a while Jack 
 spared time to take her over to spend a half day on 
 Ram Island. 
 
 So she turned to reading everything that fell into 
 her hands the papers that Judge Weston sent each 
 week, the books, indifferently chosen, which the light 
 house tender left at Ram Island once a month, and 
 over and over again the books which Rob Weston had 
 left novels of the Duchess and the Rider Haggard 
 type summer reading, as one says, mainly of the 
 kind to stir the imagination and awaken an unnatural,
 
 OF FISHERMAN S ISLAND. 37 
 
 distorted sense of realities. She read in her own espe 
 cial corner, too, recklessly building roaring fires in the 
 great fireplace. Aunt Hetty grumbled when she saw 
 the fresh smoke curl up from the other house chimney 
 nearly every afternoon. 
 
 " I declare for it, David Cameron, the way you fetch 
 an carry for that girl makes my own back ache," 
 Aunt Hetty remonstrated with her brother-in-law. 
 
 But he invariably answered, " Mary shall have her 
 fire just as she wants it, even if I have to go over to 
 the main for wood. It s about her only pleasure." 
 
 Once in a while the strain of the loneliness grew 
 too great to endure in silence. To Mary s passionate 
 complaint, "I wish something, anything, would hap 
 pen," Aunt Hetty, self-centered, unimaginative, re 
 plied : 
 
 " I call that temptin Providence. I don t see why 
 anybody should complain when she s got work enough 
 to do an a roof over her head an enough to eat." 
 
 Then repentant, remorseful, after she went home, 
 the girl would rush back to Aunt Hetty and beg her 
 never, never to tell her father that she was lonely. 
 
 So the winter wore away, and Mary learned the 
 beginning of that lesson of renunciation whose chap-
 
 38 MARY CAMERON: A ROMANCE 
 
 ters we must study one by one, until the lesson of 
 greater gain is grafted in peace upon our hearts. 
 
 Spring comes slowly along the Maine coast, and 
 nature does not thoroughly rouse herself until well 
 into April. Mary s spirits woke with the season. 
 She scoured the house from top to bottom until every 
 thing shone, then settled herself cheerfully to the 
 slow task of making over her last year s dresses, with 
 Aunt Hetty s help. She would rather have been out 
 of doors where the sprouting grass, the budding 
 trees, and the birds seemed to call her continually. 
 Sometimes she and Jack ran races the length of the 
 island. As the days grew warmer, she planted flower 
 seeds in every available spot near the house, and fell 
 into the habit of taking long walks over the island. 
 Nature seemed to answer her moods, and she was 
 better content with the island life. 
 
 All through the winter and spring the two families 
 talked of the owners coming in the summer. It was 
 early in July, however, before any message arrived. 
 
 " Only three members of the association can come this 
 year," wrote Judge Weston, " Mr. Sargent, Mr. Lor- 
 ing, and myself. Rob Weston is coming with me, and 
 Mrs. Sargent is to bring Miss Kendall. Expect us
 
 OF FISHERMAN S ISLAND. 39 
 
 the first Wednesday in August for a fish-chowder 
 dinner. Rob and I will stay over night, if you can 
 keep us." 
 
 Jt was the evening before the appointed day. Mary 
 was sitting out late on the little porch, her tired mind 
 working incoherently. To-morrow she would see 
 Rob Weston Miss Kendall, too. All during the 
 long winter she had been endowing Rob with the 
 virtues, the vigor, the comeliness combined in every 
 hero of every book she had read, and she had pic 
 tured again and again her meeting with him. 
 
 It takes only a slight reality to make a hook for a 
 woman to hang an ideal upon, and Mary Cameron was 
 no exception ; rather, indeed, the isolation of her life, 
 the untried depths of her nature, but added strength 
 to the hook and adornment to the ideal. 
 
 " Mary ! " called Captain Cameron from the kitchen, 
 where he sat reading his Bible, "you d better come 
 in ; it s getting damp, and it s time you was goin 
 to bed." 
 
 Captain Cameron was a devout man. Years ago, 
 as he honestly told now, he had led a wild, hard life. 
 When he was forty years old he married a Boothbay 
 school-teacher all conscience and love, from whom
 
 40 MARY CAMERON: A ROMANCE 
 
 Mary inherited much of her temperament who 
 thought she could regenerate the stalwart, high-tem 
 pered young sea captain. But it was not until two 
 happy years before Mrs. Cameron died that the 
 change came. 
 
 Nowadays every Sunday the old man went in sun 
 shine and in storm, too, whenever possible, to the 
 morning service at St. Anne s, in Hoothbay, the 
 Episcopal chapel where his wife had been a steadfast 
 worker. Then in the afternoons his cold lunch 
 eaten, or having taken dinner with some old friend 
 he conducted a mission Sunday-school class for the 
 Boothbay young men, in an old storeroom near the 
 wharves, where chance sailors could drop in. 
 
 He read nothing but religious newspapers and his 
 Bible, Mary and Jack, from their reading, told him 
 what was going on in the world, and every night he 
 held family prayers in the little kitchen trustful end 
 ings to homely days. There was always an earnest, 
 patient prayer, " That it may please thee, in thy mercy, 
 O Lord, to bring back my boy Edwin, and forgive me 
 for driving him away from home in the days of my 
 sinfulness," for his only son Edwin, eight years 
 Mary s senior, had, in a passion of anger over palpable
 
 OF FISHERMAN S ISLAND. 41 
 
 injustice from his father, run away to sea ten years 
 ago, and never been heard from by any sign or trace. 
 
 Captain Cameron s simple human faith of his latter 
 days, born out of much tribulation, absorbed his mind 
 and gave peculiar tone to all his utterances. His in 
 heritance, from a Scotch grandfather, of firm energy of 
 will, and his wide acquaintance through his former 
 roving life with all sorts and conditions of men, 
 saved him from weak fluctuations of purpose and 
 despondency, and saved him, too, from leading that 
 dual life common to elderly men of the rigid New 
 England type, whose spiritual fervor finds no channels 
 through their daily lives. Even Aunt Hetty said of 
 him, " I m one of the folks that like to watch your 
 Sunday Christians between Sundays ; but you don t 
 need to watch David Cameron." 
 
 To-night when they rose from their knees, Mary 
 put her arms impetuously around her father s neck. 
 "I m so happy here with you, father. Don t let s 
 go away, ever ! " and she burst out crying. 
 
 " Why, Mary ! you re all nerved up. Come, come, 
 go to bed," said her father, kissing her with more 
 than usual tenderness.
 
 42 MARY CAME EON: A ROMANCE 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 " The gods approve the depth and not the tumult of 
 the soul." 
 
 William Wordsworth. 
 
 ~T~f"T~HEN the steamboat puffed up to the wharf 
 
 and landed the party the next morning, Mary 
 was nowhere to be seen. But just before noon she 
 came to greet them. They all looked up surprised 
 when the girl appeared among them on the porch. 
 
 Judge Weston s outspoken " Why, Mary, I hardly 
 knew you ! " brought a warm rush of color into her 
 cheeks. 
 
 "Jove! she s prettier than ever," said Rob 
 Weston to himself, as he waited his turn to shake 
 hands. " I remember my good times here last sum 
 mer," was his greeting, with a straightforward look of 
 admiration in his handsome eyes. 
 
 The girl had improved in every way ; a shy dignity 
 struggled with and conquered her self-consciousness. 
 One cannot live close to nature and not gain some 
 thing of her trauquility. 
 
 "What have you done with yourself all winter?" 
 asked Miss Kendall, with a show of interest.
 
 OF FISHERMAN S ISLAND. 43 
 
 "Read when I ve not been working," answered 
 Mary laconically. The old antagonism would rise. 
 
 "Dear me! I might read for hours, and then if I 
 looked out and saw all this water and desolation, 
 every single thing would go out of my head. But 
 then, you have n t been used to winters in Boston." 
 Miss Kendall looked very dainty and high-bred, and 
 her red sunshade cast a becoming glow over her 
 face as she went on reminiscencing with Rob Weston 
 about club meetings and theater parties the past 
 winter. 
 
 Mrs. Sargent saw Mary s gathering discomfiture and 
 came to the rescue. " My boys begged me to find out 
 about the fox-farming on Damariscove Island. Are 
 there really foxes so near?" 
 
 " Yes ; Jack took me over to see them once." 
 And Mary, in her soft voice, touched with the rich 
 ness of the Scotch, told about the blue and the 
 silver-gray foxes brought from Alaska and left to 
 run wild on Damariscove. Mr. Loring, near at 
 hand, listened with keen enjoyment to the breezy 
 talk of the girl, whose brown eyes seemed to have 
 caught the light of the sea. " How the sea atmos 
 phere has taken hold of her nature in a year," he
 
 44 MARY CAMERON: A ROMANCE 
 
 said mentally, " and how refreshing after so many 
 conventional girls !" Mr. Loring was no longer very 
 young. 
 
 Soon Rob Weston was listening, too, to Mist. 
 Kendall s chagrin. Then the conversation grew gen 
 eral, and Mary found to her disappointment that 
 they had engaged Captain McKown from Mouse 
 Island to cruise around with them in his catboat that 
 afternoon to see the local yacht race. 
 
 " Do come with us," urged Mrs. Sargent. 
 
 "We should be so glad to have you," chimed in 
 Miss Kendall witli cool civility. 
 
 Mary wanted to go, but with feminine unreason said, 
 " No, I have too much to do." 
 
 They hurried through with the fish-chowder dinner 
 over which Mary had taken pathetic pains and 
 went outdoors again, the ladies with Rob to watch the 
 beginning of the races, the owners to continue their 
 dinner discussion of plans for a clubhouse. Mr. 
 Sargent, who had built many houses, had rapidly 
 sketched a plan. 
 
 " Sakes alive!" exclaimed Aunt Hetty, watching 
 them from the kitchen window as they walked out to 
 the knoll to the westward, " they 11 never put up a
 
 OF FISHERMAN \S ISLAND. 45 
 
 clubhouse out here. Those lawyer folks is always 
 talkin , talkin ." 
 
 "I am sorry you won t change your mind and come 
 with us," said Mrs. Sargent, as she and Mr. Loring 
 bade Mai y good-by before starting for the boat. 
 " We must send some books to that girl, John," she 
 added later ; " she has a good mind, I know, and it 
 needs better food." 
 
 Rob Weston walked down to the wharf with Miss 
 Kendall. There was a careless ease about his tall 
 figure in its brown golf suit, an indefinable rhythm 
 about the girl, which made them seem well adapted to 
 one another, to Mary s wistful eyes. When the party 
 was fairly off she was furious with herself for not 
 having gone. But her pride rankled yet because Rob 
 Weston had not urged her going ; why, he himself 
 hardly knew. 
 
 Toward sunset the Mouse Island boat headed for 
 the island to leave Judge Weston, Rob, and Jack. 
 It had been a sultry afternoon, long and lonely to 
 Mary, who had alternately helped Aunt Hetty and 
 watched the races through the marine glasses, keep 
 ing the catboat in sight. As the boat approached, 
 Captain Cameron said, " We d better go over to the
 
 46 MAR Y CAMERON: A ROMANCE 
 
 wharf an bid the folks good-by again." Father and 
 daughter were out on the porch. 
 
 "No, I m not going. I hate that Miss Kendall," 
 said Mary, bitterly. 
 
 " Why, Mary ! what nonsense you re talkin ." There 
 was mild astonishment in Captain Cameron s voice. 
 
 " I don t care ; she makes fun of me. I can feel 
 it," said the girl. And Captain Cameron humored 
 her ; he did not always understand Mary. 
 
 Rob Weston, with Jack, reached the house ahead of 
 Judge Weston and Captain Cameron. " Sorry you 
 did n t go with us, Miss Mary," said Rob. " It 
 was n t exactly rough, but there was a heavy swell on, 
 and the ladies did n t sail very well. I suppose you 
 are a good sailor." 
 
 " The rougher it is and the bigger the swell, the 
 better Mary likes it," put in Jack loyally. "It s 
 some fun to take her sailing. Say, Mary, we re 
 going to have a rousing driftwood fire down here on 
 the rocks after supper." 
 
 "Yes, Miss Mary," Rob interrupted, "Jack says 
 there is plenty of wood out on that rocky beach back 
 of the house. I am glad I gave up that dance at the 
 Squirrel Inn this evening."
 
 OF FISHERMAN S ISLAND. 47 
 
 How the hungry men enjoyed the hot steamed-clam 
 supper which Mary served with such a suddenly 
 brightened face ! The Sargeuts, with Miss Kendall, 
 were making Squirrel Island their headquarters. 
 
 "Oh, hang the supper dishes! Just leave them," 
 said Rob in answer to Mary s protest against starting 
 the fire at once. 
 
 "All right," said Mary, catching his impatient mood. 
 " Maybe Aunt Hetty 11 come over and do them." 
 
 Mary slipped away to change the blue flannel dress 
 skirt and white shirt waist in which she had looked so 
 well that day, for the old brown blouse and a short 
 brown skirt infinitely more artistic to Rob Weston s 
 observant eye. From the beach to the spot chosen 
 for the fire was a three minute walk, and Mary per 
 sisted in carrying her share of the wood. 
 
 " There must be terrific winds to drive this beach 
 back so far," commented Rob, corning across a ridge 
 of wave-worn pebbles in the grass. "Is n t living on 
 this island dangerous in rough weather ? " 
 
 " Yes ; when it blows hard we have to put a lee- 
 board down to keep the island from drifting away," 
 retorted Mary gaily. "Even Monhegan Island sways 
 in a gale."
 
 48 MARY CAMEEON: A ROMANCE 
 
 A feeling of good comradeship was springing up 
 between them. " Don t take that great log alone," 
 she exclaimed. " I 11 help carry it." 
 
 "The Tempest" and Miranda flashed into Rob s 
 mind. " So you 11 help me bear the log awhile," he 
 said, his dark blue eyes sending a keen glance at her. 
 This was growing interesting. 
 
 But the allusion was lost on Mary. Together they 
 carried the heavy log to the rocks down on the shore, 
 a hundred yards from the house. Jack was fetching 
 and carrying with the utmost willingness, the spell of 
 Rob s personality upon him, for Robert Western had 
 the dominating power which results from a cold nature 
 and an intuition bordering on the feminine. 
 
 " Now we 11 have a scientific fire," said Rob, 
 arranging corner logs and cross sticks over a pile of 
 shavings, with layers of broken spar, bones of ships, 
 and general wreckage. 
 
 The flames burst out gloriously. In a trice the lire 
 was crackling and blazing, with the sound and color 
 which only a driftwood fire can show, in its apparent 
 struggle to give forth again the awful energies, the 
 lurid pictures, which the mute wood has witnessed. 
 
 The sea was bumping at regular intervals on the
 
 OF FISHEBMAN S ISLAND. 49 
 
 rocks below. "That rote means a storm comin* 
 within the next three days," said Captain Cameron. 
 Wrapped in a coat, he sat leaning against the rocks, 
 toasting his feet, for August nights, even after warm 
 days, tire cool on the Maine coast. Judge Weston, 
 growing rheumatic with advancing years, dared not 
 risk exposure in the evening air. 
 
 After his exertion Rob stretched himself on a 
 shelving rock. Mary, aglow with excitement, a 
 witching vision in the firelight, flitted about, now 
 prodding the fire with a long pole, now darting off 
 into the darkness to reappear with long festoons of 
 dry seaweed, which crackled and snapped in the 
 flames. " 1 wish I were a savage," she exclaimed on 
 one of her returns, " then I could live out of doors. 
 I d like to go off hunting up to Moosehead Lake or 
 off on a whaling voyage sometime. I don t see why 
 girls should n t go, just as well as men. Jack, you 
 must take me." 
 
 "It s just as you say, Mary," answered Jack. He 
 always kept up with Mary. 
 
 "If I d been a savage I should have been a fire 
 worshipper." Mary suddenly whisked back as the 
 fantastic tongues of flame, many colored, leaped high
 
 50 MART CAMERON: A ROMANCE 
 
 toward her. "Come on, Jack, let s have a fire 
 dance." And she seized the astonished youth, drag 
 ging him breathless in a sudden mad whirl three times 
 around the fire. 
 
 " Mary ! Mary ! " called her father, amazed. 
 
 " Mary Cameron ! ain t you ashamed to be carryiu 
 on so ! " Aunt Hetty s voice seemed to come out of 
 the darkness, made more intense by the bright fire 
 light. "I declare, how you do act!" she said. 
 Mary, suddenly subdued, sank down on the bank near 
 her father. " Here you went gallivantin off an left 
 your supper dishes, an I ve just this minute finished 
 em for you, an now you re out here, actin like the 
 witch of Endor." 
 
 Fortunately for Mary, another arrival turned the 
 attention from her save that Rob was thinking to 
 himself, " What did that old woman come and stop 
 her for?" 
 
 The dip of oars drew nearer, then ceased. "It s 
 Sam Merrill." called back Jack. He had run down 
 to the water s edge, and soon returned with the light 
 house keeper from Ram Island, who scrambled readily 
 over the rocks with his wooden leg. 
 
 " He is spryer than any two men," was commonly
 
 OF FISHERMAN S ISLAND. 51 
 
 said of " Sam," as everybody called him. He had 
 lost his leg in the lighthouse service on Seguin Island 
 and had later been given charge of Ram Island, a 
 fourth-class light, requiring less care. 
 
 " I see your fire a-goin an could n t stay home," 
 said Sam, " so I told my woman I d got to get over 
 an see Cap n Cameron bout some lobster pots. I 
 know it did n t fool her one mite, but I had to have 
 some excuse, an she s aliens good-natured, after all. 
 Glad to meet you, sir, glad to meet you ; kindly hope 
 you re well," he said, when he was introduced to Rob. 
 Then he talked a few moments with Captain Cameron 
 about the lobster pots to satisfy the New England 
 conscience, of which he was in full possession. 
 
 " See here, Sam, won t you tell our fortunes," 
 asked Mary, " if you ve got your cards here? " 
 
 "Stuff and nonsense," sniffed Aunt Hetty. " Your 
 fortune 11 come fast enough without pryin into the 
 future." 
 
 But Sam was already pulling out of his jacket 
 pocket a pack of well-worn cards. " Got em here, 
 sure enough," he said. 
 
 "Tell Mr. Weston s first." Mary s voice came out 
 of the shadows.
 
 52 MART CAMERON: A ROMANCE 
 
 " No, yours, Miss Mary," insisted Rob; he wanted 
 to see her nearer in the firelight. 
 
 " Make your wish an cut with your left hand," 
 directed Sara impressively, after he had shuffled the 
 cards. "An keep the wish in your mind all the 
 while." 
 
 Mary came forward close to the fire, near where 
 Sam had seated himself. She cut the cards almost 
 solemnly. Sam had only once before told her fortune, 
 and his reputation ran high. 
 
 Mumbling some mysterious words, Sam told off 
 certain cards. These he spread out on a flat rock and 
 began : 
 
 "There ain t much in this fortune, but what there is 
 is queer, kinder. Here s something like a long lane 
 that ain t got no turnin yet awhile ; I spect that s 
 livin on the island. Things all goes one way, kinder 
 sad like, an dretful feelin . You set your heart on 
 somethin , an rnebbe you get it an mebbe you don t. 
 Seems as if eddication or book larnin or somethin 
 stands in the way. There s a heap o money comiu , 
 an presents, an letters." 
 
 "Stuff and nonsense, Sam Merrill!" interrupted 
 Aunt Hetty. " You tell just the same things to 
 everybody."
 
 OF FISHERMAN S ISLAND. 53 
 
 " Is that all?" asked Mary. 
 
 "Yes, bout all; guess I ain t feelin like it to 
 night," replied Sam, with a deprecatory glance at 
 Aunt Hetty. 
 
 Rob, spellbound, was watching Mary. Her hair, 
 loosened with the dancing, ha 1 fallen waving around 
 her face ; her cheeks were brilliant, her eyes flashing, 
 her breath coming quick and fast. " I d make my 
 fortune if I could paint her now," he said to himself. 
 "Isn t she going to get married?" he asked with 
 sudden whim. 
 
 "Yes, oh, yes, some day; but the course o true 
 love ain t goin to run very smooth with her," Sam 
 answered glibly. "Now it s your turn, Mr. Weston," 
 he added, shuffling the cards again. 
 
 " My! but you re goin to have adventures, heaps 
 of em. An here s a dark lady an a light com 
 plected lady, an things kinder mixed up together." 
 And Sam rambled on, Mary listening, all attention, 
 Rob indifferently, till Sam said, "It pears to me 
 you re goin to make a new begiunin ." 
 
 " That interests me," said Rob. " What is it?" he 
 asked, half credulously. 
 
 " Somethin s goin to happen new an different,"
 
 54 MARY CAMERON: A ROMANCE 
 
 said Sam, delighted to have made a hit. "You re 
 goin somewheres an goin to make a heap o money." 
 
 " More likely spend a heap," said Rob. " You 
 were all off in that nonsense about the girls ; I ve 
 never eared for anybody yet,"- this was for Mary s 
 benefit " but it s rather strange about the other, for 
 there is a change coming in my life. I in going to 
 Europe this fall to study art for three years." 
 
 Mary rose so suddenly that some of Sam s cards 
 fell into the fire. One thought was whirling through 
 her brain : Europe was as far away as another world, 
 and three years a lifetime ! 
 
 Sam rescued what cards he could. " I have a pack 
 here which I 11 leave for you," said Rob, puzzling 
 over Mary s start. 
 
 " It s high time we was goin into the house, Mary, 
 an endiu this nonsense," put in Aunt Hetty. " 1 for 
 one can t stay out any longer, an it ain t proper for 
 you to," she added bluntly. Her instinct was as quick 
 as her tongue. Captain Cameron had left when the 
 fortune-telling began. He was liberal as regards 
 others but inexorable with himself, and cards had 
 helped make havoc with his early life. 
 
 Good night," said Sam, hurrying off. He was
 
 OF FISHERMAN S ISLAND. 55 
 
 afraid of Aunt Hetty and wanted to go before he was 
 sent. Jack went to help him start ; they were firm 
 friends for many a good turn done one another. 
 
 "I m waitin for you, Mary," said Aunt Hetty, 
 pointedly. Mary had seized an old fish pole and was 
 absently poking the fire, fast dying now. "That 
 fire s all right to leave." 
 
 " We will come right along," said Rob, but Aunt 
 Hetty seated herself grimly to wait. Rob spread the 
 ashes over the glowing embers, trying to get a word 
 with Mary meanwhile. But not a word would she 
 speak, until, dropping the pole, she turned to Aunt 
 Hetty. "I m ready now." And she walked in 
 silence to the house, Rob close behind her. 
 
 From the quaint parlor, where he stopped for a bed 
 time smoke with his uncle, Rob Weston heard Captain 
 Cameron s voice in the kitchen and guessed what was 
 going on. 
 
 Captain Cameron noticed that Mary did not respond 
 to the prayers that night. 
 
 The lights were soon out in the little house. Out 
 side, Seguin, Ram Island, and Burnt Island lights made 
 long reflections across the water, and the crescent moon 
 glimmered through a bank of low clouds in the west.
 
 56 MARY CAMERON: A ROMANCE 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 " What then meant that summer s day 
 Silence spent in one long gaze?" 
 
 Robert Browning. 
 
 YOU D better have breakfast with us ; it will 
 bring the roses back to your cheeks," said 
 Judge Weston, with kindly insistence, the next morn 
 ing ; for Mary, after pouring the coffee, rose from the 
 table saying, " Father and I had breakfast an hour 
 ago." 
 
 Her face had color enough in a moment. "Thank 
 you, I can t stay ; I have some work to do." And she 
 vanished into the kitchen. 
 
 But Rob did not intend her to be let alone. He 
 hurriedly ate his breakfast and followed her. 
 
 " Miss Mary, will you put on that brown blouse, 
 and let me sketch you out by those big rocks behind 
 the house?" He leaned against the door near the 
 table, where Mary was filling lamps. The turned-back 
 sleeves of her blue shirt waist showed her firm, white 
 arms. As she was about to use her scissors he took 
 them, obliging her to look at him. Then he bent his
 
 OF FISHEBMAN S ISLAND. 57 
 
 pleading eyes upon her. " Possibly your picture will 
 lielp make my fortune iu Paris." 
 
 Both her vanity and her sympathy were touched, 
 and Rob was triumphant over the hesitating " Yes." 
 "Come now," he begged, "the light is just right." 
 
 Disregarding Aunt Hetty s probable comment, Mary, 
 with sudden elation of spirits, ran upstairs to change 
 her dress. 
 
 A sleepless night had left her with a pallor which 
 gave deepened delicacy to her face. "Jove! she d 
 be tremendous if you once got her well roused," 
 thought Rob. 
 
 He seated his model against the gray-brown rocks, 
 with their brilliant background of blue sky, Mary 
 first examining, with childlike curiosity, his paint 
 box, palette, and tubes of color, and stationing him 
 self at due distance, began his work. 
 
 Stiff and conscious at the outset, she spoiled his 
 expectation. But gradually the tension wore off, her 
 figure relaxed, and seeing him steadily at work he 
 was only putting in details, the yellow-green grass, the 
 gray lichened rock she lost herself in a popular 
 novel he had given her ; after awhile the book dropped 
 from her hand, and she looked out over the sea with
 
 58 MARY CAMERON: A ROMANCE 
 
 just the expression of strained wistfulness he had 
 hoped to catch. Occasionally her eyes met his, and 
 met an absorbed look the man was lost in the artist. 
 
 The sitting lasted almost three hours. In her 
 abandonment Mary forgot the cramped position, the 
 physical discomfort. Suddenly Aunt Hetty s voice 
 broke the stillness. 
 
 " Mary, I sh d think t was time you was gettin 
 dinner! Here it is after leven o clock, an your 
 father s brought in a cod he s just caught. I ve biled 
 some lobsters for you ; I s posed you d forget to." 
 
 " Confound the woman ! " muttered Rob under his 
 breath. Mary swayed insecurely when she rose. 
 "I m afraid it has tired you, Miss Mary!" he ex 
 claimed contritely. " I can work now without you, 
 and perhaps you 11 sit again some time ; I 11 be putting 
 in the color of your dress." And he dipped a fresh 
 brush in the burnt umber on his palette. 
 
 Mary gave a hurried glance at the canvas in pass 
 ing. "Do I look like that?" she asked herself, color 
 ing with pleasure as she walked away. 
 
 An intense excitement dominated her. She wanted 
 to grasp the moments. It did not seem to be herself 
 who was moving, thinking, speaking. She could not
 
 OF FISHERMAN S ISLAND. 59 
 
 have explained it, a young girl does not analyze 
 emotion ; she simply feels it. 
 
 At dinner the talk turned on Rob s going to 
 Europe. 
 
 " I wish he had taken something besides painting 
 pictures for his life work," said Judge Weston ; " but 
 it s been in him all his life, and I want him to do the 
 best he can. A man s work must be more than a 
 pastime. Yet even talent is mediocrity in Paris, 
 where hundreds of artists are trying to express the 
 inexpressible, and to grasp the unattainable. But the 
 experience will show what stuff there is in him, at all 
 events." 
 
 " Paris ain t the place I sh d chose for a young 
 man." Captain Cameron knew whereof he spoke. 
 " There s always two sides to a question though, an 
 your nephew s a grown man now. He 11 probably 
 come out all right. I spect the worst thing it 11 do 
 will be to knock the religion out of him." 
 
 " Jack says I can take the Kady to sail over to Inner 
 Heron Island this afternoon," Rob announced, to 
 change the subject. " Will you come with me, Miss 
 Mary ? I have to call on an old friend who s staying 
 at the Madockawanda House."
 
 60 MARY CAMERON: A ROMANCE 
 
 " Yes, I d like to go." Mary s answer came in a 
 low voice. 
 
 Captain Cameron looked up. " I s pose you know 
 all about boats," he said ; " there ain t much wind, 
 though, an like s not you 11 get beca med comiu back. 
 Do you think you d better go, Mary ? " 
 
 " Oh, yes ! dear daddy, please ! " said Mary, with a 
 beseeching look. Captain Cameron made no further 
 protest. 
 
 Before the two started Judge Weston took Rob 
 aside. Be careful, Rob " ; his tone was significant. 
 " I think too much of Mary Cameron to have you 
 trifle with her." 
 
 The Kady s sail caught the wind as soon as she was 
 out from the lee of the laud. Jack, watching the boat 
 from the hilltop, repented bitterly having offered her 
 to Rob. Rob had not once suggested his going, too. 
 
 As they passed out north of Fisherman s Island, lazy 
 seals, sunning themselves, slipped off from the rocks 
 into the water, barking like young dogs. Over the 
 sparkling sea white gulls were flying in low circles, 
 and above the surface, schools of young mackerel 
 flecked their shining sides. Past the Ocean Point 
 shores on the west, and across Liunekin s Bav,
 
 OF FISHERMAN S ISLAND. 61 
 
 the southwest wind sped them rapidly, and the 
 Kady cut through the water " with a bone in her 
 teeth." 
 
 " I in going to whistle for more wind," exclaimed 
 Mary. She was standing against the mast, her hat 
 off, her hair tossed by the wind. " I notice breezes 
 come better for lively tunes than they do for hymns," 
 and she whistled " Nancy Lee " in a way which Rob 
 found bewitching. 
 
 Easily moved, impressionable, Robert Weston had 
 always followed his impulses hither and thither, save that 
 he held unswervingly to his art. School and college 
 had given him only such teaching as he chose to take. 
 His nature was so ingenuous, so magnetic, that people 
 unconsciously bent to him. The one strong affection 
 of his life was for his uncle, whose bounty had been 
 unlimited. Their common feeling of loyal apprecia 
 tion for Judge Weston formed a definite bond between 
 Rob and Mary, affording a background of interest. 
 
 Mary stopped whistling, her thought going back to 
 what Judge Weston had said about being like other 
 girls. 
 
 " What do men like best in a girl? " came the unex 
 pected question, as she sat down and put on the brown
 
 62 MARY CAMERON: A ROMANCE 
 
 tarn o shanter cap. The expression in her eyes 
 baffled Rob. 
 
 " Sympathy," he answered after a moment. Then 
 he returned the question. 
 
 " "What does a girl like best in a man?" 
 
 She colored close up to the waving hair. " Oh 
 she likes to be cared for, I suppose/ she stammered. 
 
 "Yes, that s just it," Rob went on; he was at 
 home in Jin de siecle discussion. " A girl s heart is 
 moved by little things thai never affect us. Now I 
 like a girl who is sympathetic, so that you can always 
 count on it, and yet who is different at times, like the 
 ocean, you know, always the same underneath, with a 
 lot of variety on the surface." 
 
 Mary s heart sank. Sympathy she could feel, even 
 if she could not express it, but variety she could 
 only be herself. 
 
 They were close to Inner Heron Island now, for the 
 two mile run had taken hardly half an hour. Rob 
 made the landing and moored the boat, leaving the 
 sail set to shade Mary. " I ll be gone only a few 
 minutes," he said as he went up the wharf steps. 
 
 Mary, deep in thought, was drawing her hands back 
 and forth through the water when Rob returned.
 
 OF FISHEBMAN X ISLAND. 63 
 
 He scowled at two young fellows who were staring 
 down from the wharf at Mary, unbeknown to her, and 
 hurried the boat off. 
 
 Even in the short time since Rob landed, the wind 
 had died away perceptibly. They drifted out, scarcely 
 making headway at first. The sky was a luminous, 
 uurufiled blue and the sea a succession of long, lazy 
 swells. 
 
 Rob talked a little about Paris. The old lady friend 
 had been giving him motherly advice. " I think I 
 shall be happy with three whole years for my art," 
 he said ; " but after all, the wrench of going away 
 makes me wonder if I could n t do just as well at 
 home. Still, a man has to keep up with the proces 
 sion these days, or else fall out." 
 
 "I wish I had lived a hundred years ago;" Mary 
 spoke impetuously. Men and women were truer 
 and better then. I don t like the books that are 
 written now ; they don t seem real." 
 
 " The trouble is they are too real," said Rob. 
 
 " Perhaps," Mary replied, " but I don t understand 
 them. I love to take life hard, don t you, and not 
 have it just make believe? I d rather feel things, and 
 have them almost kill me. It s a satisfaction ; you
 
 64 MARY CAMEROX: A ROMANCE 
 
 can hug it to you." She drew her arms close to 
 herself. 
 
 Rob did not answer. Speech began to seem need 
 less this golden afternoon. He shifted the sail and 
 headed the Kady out to sea on a long tack, to get the 
 good of the wind. The air was heavy with soft 
 fragrance ; the waves, lapping against the boat, made 
 faint music. The light glowed in a shining haze as 
 the sun sank lower, and the water gleamed exquisitely 
 iridescent. 
 
 When the Kady at last drifted out opposite Fisher 
 man s, Rob turned her prow westward. 
 
 "It s almost six o clock! " he exclaimed, glancing 
 at his watch. 
 
 The sun had told the time to Mary, but when Rob 
 said, " We shall get back sooner if I row, she an 
 swered, " The tide will take us soon enough." 
 
 Straight before them now lay the pathway of gold. 
 As they sailed toward the sunset, the level rays of 
 reddening light fell full on the girl s face, touching it 
 into rare beauty. Rob looked at her half bewildered. 
 Was it all real? 
 
 The sun vanished beneath red billows of cloud back 
 of Southport. Above these clouds the sky color
 
 OF FISHERMAN S ISLAND. 65 
 
 incited from soft green into delicate deepening blue. 
 The half-moon, warm and red, hung in midheaven, 
 and the evening star looked out, red-warm, too. 
 
 "I don t believe Mars is inhabited, do you?" 
 Mary s voice had a far-away sound. "The Bible 
 does n t say so." 
 
 " But it does n t say, either, that there are n t other 
 worlds as well as this," answered Rob. It seemed 
 natural enough to be talking about such things with 
 this girl. 
 
 " Why should n t there be a Bible for this world, 
 and another for some other world?" Mary went on, 
 musingly. " If God can do everything, there need n t 
 be any limit to worlds and peoples. But just think of 
 the millions of stars ! It is like a great weight over 
 head." 
 
 Rob moved nearer her, as if protectingly ; and he 
 saw a look in her eyes that responded to something 
 rising in his own heart. He was fast forgetting 
 Europe, his plans, his uncle, everything save the 
 witchery of time and place. 
 
 " Before you go, I want to ask you something," she 
 said, with clear, shining eyes. 
 
 " Ask me now."
 
 66 MARY CAMERON: A ROMANCE 
 
 " No, not now." 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 "Oh, I can t yet," she answered, looking away. 
 
 Rob Wt-ston prided himself on his worldly readiness, 
 but here he was strangely at a loss. This girl was 
 both fire and ice, now so near, then in a moment as 
 far away as the stars. 
 
 They were approaching the Fisherman s shores, all 
 too soon, Rob thought. Monhegan and Pemaquid 
 lights shone in the distance, the fog-bell on the Hypo 
 crites sounded faintly. Ahead, the red light streamed 
 out from Ram Island, as Rob turned the Kady into 
 the narrow channel between the two islands. 
 
 "I ll take the sail down," he said, as it began to 
 flap under the lee of Fisherman s. He gave the 
 rudder over to her. " They 11 know we are coming," 
 he added, as the sail creaked along the mast. 
 
 " How late is it? " inquired Mary. 
 
 " About eight o clock. Will your aunt mind? " he 
 asked, coming aft. 
 
 " Yes," said Mary with a sigh. 
 
 " I m awfully sorry." He was close to her. Her 
 shapely brown hands, not beautiful, but homelike, 
 were on the rudder, and he put his own upon them.
 
 OF FISHERMAN S ISLAND. t>7 
 
 After a brief, bewildering moment, she quickly 
 thrust her hands behind her, and moved away in a 
 tumult of new feelings, saying passionately, " You 
 have no right to do that." 
 
 " I could n t helj) it," he said in a low tone, spring 
 ing to save the Kady from scraping against the wharf. 
 
 In a moment .luck appeared, followed by his mother. 
 Once landed, escaping from Aunt Hetty s sharp com 
 ments, Mary hurried toward the house. Rob overtook 
 her. 
 
 "Tell me now what you wanted to ask me," he 
 begged. 
 
 " No, don t ask me now ! " 
 
 " Will yon before I go? " 
 
 "Yes; to-morrow." She ran away from him into 
 the house, and kept close to her father the rest of the 
 evening. He and Judge Weston were talking over 
 old school days. 
 
 The next morning a heavy gray fog shrouded every 
 thing ; lifting fitfully at intervals, it showed an angry, 
 tossing sea, then the curtain shut the island again into 
 a silent wilderness, save when the fog-signal sounded 
 from the Cuckcolds, or the bell-buoy on the Hypocrites 
 broke the stillness.
 
 68 MARY CAMERON: A ROMANCE 
 
 " If you ve got to go, Judge," said Captain Cam 
 eron at breakfast, " we must be off right away, for we 11 
 have to feel our way over to the main ; Jack s got his 
 boat all ready." 
 
 " Why not stay another day?" suggested Rob. 
 
 " No, I must be off." Judge Weston s tone was 
 decided ; the dampness had given him a twinge of 
 rheumatism. " Besides, we re likely to have a spell 
 of weather out of this, Captain Cameron says." 
 
 " Yes, when the sun comes up double, same s it 
 did yesterday, look out for weather," explained Cap 
 tain Cameron. " Sorry to have you go, but the wind 
 has hauled round to the uor east, an we re in for a 
 storm." 
 
 " Come into the other room a moment," Rob said to 
 Mary, as they all rose from the table ; and she fol 
 lowed him. 
 
 There was something pathetic in the droop of her 
 figure, as she stood by the table in her " speak-a- 
 bit" corner, and it roused his manhood; he felt a 
 momentary mad desire to take her in his arms. But 
 the flush of the evening had gone : it was cold day 
 light now. His manner stiffened, though his eyes 
 kindled.
 
 OF FISHERMAN S ISLAND. 69 
 
 u What did you want to ask me ? " His tone was 
 very gentle. 
 
 She waited a moment to gain control of her voice. 
 " Have you have you ever been confirmed ? " 
 
 " What ! " The amazement in his voice was unmis 
 takable. 
 
 "Have you ever been confirmed, in the church?" 
 She repeated the question, her voice still lower. 
 
 " Oh, yes, years ago. But I don t make much of 
 those things. Why do you ask me? " How the light 
 tone hurt her ! 
 
 " Oh, never mind," came the embarrassed reply, as 
 she turned away. 
 
 "Rob! Rob! hurry up!" Judge Weston called 
 peremptorily. 
 
 " Just a minute, Uncle Levi," Rob answered im 
 patiently. Mary was going toward the door. He 
 stopped her in front of the fireplace. " Give me those 
 flowers, will you? " 
 
 She took the sweet pease from her belt. He seized 
 the trembling hand with the flowers. 
 
 " Will you write to me while I am away?" he asked 
 in an uncertain voice. 
 
 " Yes." He could not see her face.
 
 70 MARY CAMERON: A ROMANCE 
 
 "Good-by Mary! I shall never forget these 
 days here." Bending over, he kissed her forehead 
 and rushed from the room. 
 
 The others were waiting outside the house. There 
 was strong will in the girl. She summoned all her 
 self-control and went down to the beach, where Jack 
 was read} with his dory to take them aboard the 
 Kady. 
 
 " Is the luggage all in?" asked Judge Weston. 
 
 "Aye, aye, sir," answered Captain Cameron, 
 "picter an all." 
 
 " Well, good-by, Mrs. Cameron," said Judge 
 Weston, shaking hands with Aunt Hetty. " Good-by, 
 Mary," laying his hand affectionately on her shoulder, 
 " we shall meet again sometime." His kind, keen 
 eyes looked deep into hers. 
 
 Rob was the last one to step into the boat. 
 " Good-by, once more," he said to Mary. 
 
 A moment later the fog shut the boat from sight. 
 
 "What you goin to do now?" asked Aunt Hetty, 
 detaining Mary. " I ve got to go to cookiu . It s a 
 dretful nuisance, this havin folks come an hinder 
 your work." 
 
 "Pick some raspberries," Mary answered at ran-
 
 OF FISHERMAN 1 S ISLAND. 71 
 
 dorn. The thought of going into the house choked 
 her. 
 
 What, this wet mornin , an leave all your work! 
 I sh d think you d lost your senses. You look bout 
 fit to go to bed." Aunt Hetty gave the girl a search 
 ing glance. Mary turned and left her ; she could not 
 speak another word. 
 
 On she went, vanishing into the fog, past the house, 
 past the great rocks looming ghost-like where Rob 
 had painted her picture only yesterday was it? 
 along the footpath to the narrow, rocky bar. There 
 she threw herself down on the hard beach, a hundred 
 fiery thoughts darting through her brain with intoler 
 able torture. " Oh, if I could only die! " she gasped, 
 tearless, shivering sobs shaking her from head to foot. 
 
 Was this the end of the dream in which she had 
 lived all the long months since last summer? Rob 
 had asked her to write to him, but oh, that intermin 
 able distance, those endless years ! 
 
 The fish hawks shrieked overhead, the sea broke 
 angrily on the rocks below, and the cold fog shut her 
 in closer to utter loneliness. 
 
 She was very young, scarcely twenty, younger far 
 in many ways than most girls, and all the untried
 
 <- MARY CAMERON: A ROMANCE 
 
 tenderness and strength of her nature had gone into 
 this dream. 
 
 Only the year before she had been admitted into the 
 church, and to her sensitive nature, drawn by her 
 father s influence toward things unseen, this had been 
 the very opening of heaven. Yesterday, throughout 
 that long summer day, the thought of separation, and 
 a dread foreboding never far absent from those who 
 live where men go down to the sea in ships had 
 roused an unquenchable desire to know that Rob, too, 
 would be in that high heaven. But when she asked 
 the" question, how little he understood ! Even if she 
 had explained, would it have meant any tiling to him? 
 
 Had she shown him how much she cared ? Why else 
 did he kiss her? Her pride rose to rebuke her and the 
 sense of humiliation made her writhe in agony, till the 
 last reaction from the strain of the past days came in 
 clicking sobs, which left her weak and exhausted. 
 
 The gulls whirled near, the great seas shivered and 
 broke at her feet. Splashing drops of rain roused 
 her. Was it late? She could not tell. Wet, chilled, 
 wretched, she went slowly back to the house to make 
 ready for her father s home-coming.
 
 OF FISHERMAN S ISLAND. 73 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 " Every day brings a ship, 
 Every ship brings a word; 
 Well for those who have no fear, 
 Looking seaward well assured 
 That the word the vessel brings 
 Is the word they wish to hear." 
 
 Ralph Waldo Emerson. 
 
 B WESTON, looking out over gay, glittering 
 -l_ii Paris, chewed the end of his pen meditatively 
 several moments before beginning his first letter to 
 Mary Cameron. The ocean voyage had brought 
 Fisherman s Island into his foreground again ; it had 
 retreated somewhat during the weeks of preparation. 
 The unfinished sketch upon his studio wall caught 
 his eye. Paris and Fisherman s Island ! Could there 
 be a greater contrast? But what to say ! "I can t 
 make love to her," he exclaimed, " so I 11 just pitch 
 in and write as I would to anybody. She s such a 
 sympathetic soul, she will understand." So he began 
 writing. 
 
 " NO. , RUE DE LA SORBONNE, 
 
 PAKIS, October 10, 189-. 
 
 "Dear 3/iss Mary, Much as you were in my 
 mind, I could not write in those hurried davs before I
 
 74 MART CAMERON: A ROMANCE 
 
 sailed. Being on the ocean seemed almost to bring 
 you nearer, though each puff of the steamer took me 
 farther away from you. 
 
 " Late September is a hard time at sea, and there 
 is n t much more to say about the voyage than that 
 I met a man from Bridgewater, Mass., an art student, 
 bound for Paris, too, a quiet, talented fellow, good 
 ballast for me, and we have cast in our lot together. 
 We reached Paris three days ago, hunted up a studio 
 the first thing, and are now almost settled in three 
 rooms near the Sorbonne, the Latin part of Paris, 
 where all the students live. We use the kitchen for 
 wardrobe and storeroom, take our meals at a cafe, 
 have our beds in the parlor, and are going to live, 
 generally, in the studio. 
 
 "The first day we went to the Louvre and saw 
 hundreds of famous pictures I can t begin to tell 
 you about them and dozens of art students, men 
 and women, young and old, sorry-appearing objects, 
 mostly, looking as though hunger and empty pockets 
 were near neighbors. I wonder if I shall come to 
 that! After we had looked at pictures until we 
 could n t take in another one, we went to Notre Dame 
 Cathedral, which at first is disappointing ; but it 
 grows on me and makes me think of Victor Hugo s 
 stories. 
 
 "All the Parisian world has come back to town, 
 and it is a gay, stirring world. Sometimes it stifles
 
 OF FISHERMAN S ISLAND. 75 
 
 me, and toward night I would give a good deal to be 
 back at home, drudging away. We have splendid big 
 windows in our studio ; the sunset view now is superb. 
 You ought to see it, Eiffel Tower with a generous 
 sprinkling of hotel roofs in the foreground, to the 
 right Notre Dame, with St. Sulpice and others thrown 
 in, and on the left, the rest of this side of the Seine, 
 all lighted up with a glorious, golden color. 
 
 " I expect to begin work at the Julienne Academy 
 next week. Meanwhile I am doing a sketch now and 
 then, and looking around. Already I have met half 
 a dozen men I know. I shall be very much occupied 
 with work and club matters, but that will not prevent 
 my writing often, and wanting to hear from you. 
 Your letters will be more than welcome, lam im 
 patient for the first one. 
 
 Ever most faithfully, 
 
 ROBERT WESTON." 
 
 Summer, and the better part of autumn, too, was 
 now past. Mary s flowers had perished in the heavy 
 frosts, and the grass had faded to dull brown. 
 The shivering stacks of cornstalks, the cawing of 
 hungry crows, the shrill shrieks of sea gulls gave an 
 atmosphere of melancholy to Fisherman s Island. 
 All the summer cottages on Ocean Point and on the 
 neighboring islands were closed.
 
 76 MARY CAMERON: A ROMANCE 
 
 The wild geese had already wheeled overhead, 
 southward bound, and Jack one day reported a white 
 Arctic owl hovering around, "signs of a long, 
 cold winter," worried Aunt Hetty ; she always went 
 more than halfway to meet misfortune. Donald 
 Cameron had been at home in September, and was 
 now on his way to South America. He liked living 
 at home on Fisherman s Island even less than in 
 Boothbay. 
 
 Mary sat by the dining room window, waiting for 
 her father, who had just sailed into the cove. The 
 light from the setting sun reflected pale yellow streaks 
 in the water near the shore ; the wind, whistling, 
 rattled the windows. A year ago, despite the cold, 
 the girl would have run down to meet her father. 
 
 " Bhrr ! but it s a bitter spell ! " exclaimed Captain 
 Cameron, opening the kitchen door. " I hope my 
 little housekeeper s got somethin pipiu hot for her 
 old daddy s supper." 
 
 " Yes, a clam stew," said Mary, her face brighten 
 ing as she helped the stiff hands untie the woolen 
 comforter. 
 
 " Here s a letter for you," Captain Cameron drew 
 a thin, rustling envelope from his pea-jacket pocket,
 
 OF FISHERMAN *V ISLAND. 77 
 
 " an it s got the first foreign stamp I ve seen in many 
 a year. I expect it s from that Rob Weston." 
 
 " Yes." Mary felt an odd tightening in her throat. 
 She had almost given up the hope of hearing from 
 him. She looked eagerly at the letter, postmarked 
 "Paris, 5e 11 Oct., 9." "I ll read it by and by; 
 you must have supper now." But she found time to 
 read the letter twice while her father put his heavy 
 rubber boots into the shed, and brought the wood for 
 the night. 
 
 She waited for him to ask about the letter after 
 supper, but he settled down by the kitchen fire to read 
 his papers, first handing out to her from the big mar 
 ket basket a firmly tied, plainly addressed package. 
 
 " More books, I do believe ! Yes," said Mary 
 delightedly, as she brought to light a volume of 
 Shakespeare, a copy of " Lorna Doone," and several 
 magazines. Another bundle of books had reached her 
 in September, from Mrs. Sargent the two families de 
 cided by the Newton, Mass., postmark; and though 
 the writing was unmistakably that of a man, Mary 
 had written to thank Mrs. Sargent. 
 
 As she lingered late over the books, the girl began 
 framing her answer to Rob Weston s letter, which,
 
 78 MARY CAMERON: A ROMANCE 
 
 each time she read it anew, seemed to lack something, 
 she hardly knew what. 
 
 With the autumn had come an introspective with 
 drawing into herself, new to Mary ; the tide of self- 
 analysis, sounding so persistently on the shores of Hie 
 closing century, reached even to this remote island. 
 Dazed and dejected at first, her questioning had grown 
 gradually, aided by Rob Weston s silence, u-ntil she 
 had come into a half-hearted determination to let the 
 dream go. But it was touched into reality again by 
 his letter, unsatisfactory though this was. 
 
 She copied and recopied her answer until every 
 spark of naturalness was worn away. Then, trusting 
 no one else to mail it, she sailed over to the mainland 
 with her father and posted it herself. 
 
 Winter began with November. " I declare for it," 
 said Aunt Hetty, "seems as if everything outdoors 
 was dead set against us, all the winds of God an all 
 the frost an cold." 
 
 Day after day Captain Cameron and Jack came 
 in stiff and half frozen from hauling their lobster 
 traps, the Portland packet called once a month to 
 take all the catch they had on hand. 
 
 Every morning, regardless of the weather, Mary
 
 OF FISHERMAN 8 ISLAND. 79 
 
 wrapped herself in an old coat of her father s, tucked 
 her rebellious hair under the worn tarn o shanter, and 
 went to see Aunt Hetty. Occasionally the two fam 
 ilies talked of living together in the larger house, but 
 Aunt Hetty always ended the discussion with, "I m 
 used to my own ways, and t would fret me to have 
 anybody else botherin around the work ; besides, 
 livin apart gives us somewheres to go." On Sunday 
 afternoons she and Jack came to see Mary and stayed 
 to supper ; afterwards they all spent the evening in 
 k the fore room," as Aunt Hetty called it, by the drift 
 wood fire, while Mary read aloud. There was seldom 
 a Sunday now when Captain Cameron could venture 
 over to church, and it grieved him sorely. 
 
 A second letter came from Rob Weston, two weeks 
 after the first one. Sam Merrill brought it early one 
 morning he had been to Boothbay the day before. 
 
 It was a short, impetuous letter, evidently written 
 under the spur of strong feeling. Rob complained of 
 the dreariness of Paris, the lack of comfort in his 
 way of living, the loneliness of being among stran 
 gers, and he ended by saying : 
 
 " I will tell you what I have not told any one else 
 that I am almost sure of having some illustration work
 
 80 MARY CAMERON: A ROMANCE 
 
 to do for the Century Magazine, which will take me 
 home early in the spring. Please do not mention this, 
 for many reasons." 
 
 A tumult of hope sprang up in Mary s heart, as the 
 long vista of three years reduced itself to a few 
 months, and she went about her work singing so joy 
 ously that her father, coming in to look over the 
 papers Sam had brought, exclaimed, " Why, bless my 
 heart, Mary ! It does me good to hear you singiu 
 again." Aunt Hetty, too, noticed a change and com 
 mented to herself, "Girls nowadays do beat all; I 
 never saw anybody with so many ups and downs as 
 Mary." 
 
 That evening the girl wrote her answer, impulsively, 
 without copying this time ; of course he did not like 
 that wicked, lonely Paris, she hoped he would 
 surely come home, she wished it were even sooner. 
 
 There had been an off-shore wind for two days, and 
 the sea was rolling into the cove in great toppling 
 green waves. 
 
 " David Cameron, I wish } T OU d forbid Jack goin 
 to Boothbay ! " Aunt Hetty burst into the kitchen 
 the next morning, a small shawl pinned over her 
 head, and a heavier shawl over her shoulders. Breath-
 
 OF FISHERMAN S ISLAND. 81 
 
 less with hurry and excitement, she sank into a chair, 
 and the head shawl slipped back. She was short in 
 stature, thin featured, with snapping brown eyes ; 
 her iron-gray hair, drawn tightly back, was twisted 
 into a determined knot. "He says he s goin , an I 
 say it ain t a fit day." 
 
 " Well, it does look pretty squally," said Captain 
 Cameron. "What s he goin for? I mean to get 
 over to the main myself, Saturday." This was 
 Wednesday. 
 
 " Says he s got to have some spruce knees for the 
 boat he s buildin ; but that s only an excuse, I know. 
 He s possessed to start ; I never saw him so set," 
 answered Aunt Hetty, rocking nervously back and 
 forth. 
 
 Mary kept on with her bread-making, her back 
 turned to Aunt Hetty. 
 
 " I can t forbid his goin if he won t stay for you, 
 Mehitable." There was no mistaking Captain Cam 
 eron s tone, and when he said "Mehitable" Aunt 
 Hetty was always silenced. Fastening her shawls 
 closer, she started homeward, not much comforted by 
 Captain Cameron s " Don t worry, Hetty, Jack knows 
 most us nuiuh about boats as any man on the coast."
 
 82 MARY CAMERON: A ROMANCE 
 
 While the talk was going on, Mary s face burned 
 scarlet. The afternoon before, she had found Jack 
 in the boathouse, praised his progress on the new 
 boat, and inquired of him, in an offhand manner : 
 
 "When are you going to Booth bay again? I have 
 an important letter I want mailed, but please don t 
 say anything about it." 
 
 Next to his boats, Jack loved Mary ; and without 
 thinking much about the letter, replied : 
 
 "I ll go in the morning; I must go anyway." 
 Mary s interest gave him new zeal for his work. 
 
 His mother s objections were unavailing ; he only 
 shut his mouth the closer, and told himself, "When 
 Jack Cameron says he 11 do a thing, Jack Cameron 
 will do it." Accordingly, about ton o clock, with Mary s 
 letter in his pocket, he slid the Kady out from her moor 
 ings, and double-reefing the sail, started off on a long 
 tack to windward. His mother s mind was somewhat 
 relieved to see Sam Merrill set out, a few moments 
 later, in the lighthouse cutter. 
 
 The two boats were soon running neck to neck. 
 When they had vanished around Ocean Point, Aunt 
 Hetty took her knitting, and went over to Mary s. 
 "I m that fidgety I can t stay alone," she said.
 
 OF FISHEBMAN S ISLAND. oo 
 
 After the early dinner, she began looking for the 
 Kady. 
 
 One o clock struck from the tall, old-fashioned time 
 keeper in the kitchen corner. Its slow measuring of 
 the hours suited Fisherman s Island ; Judge Westou 
 had often noted that. 
 
 The wind was coming heavy and squally. 
 
 Two o clock struck. 
 
 "It s time he was in sight," said Aunt Hetty, 
 clicking her knitting needles faster. From the win 
 dow where she sat, she could see ominous bunches of 
 cloud, racing southward. 
 
 The half hour sounded. 
 
 Mary moved around the kitchen restlessly. 
 
 " There he is now ! " exclaimed Aunt Hetty with a 
 sigh of relief, reaching for the marine glasses, as a 
 sail came into sight this side of Tumbler Island. 
 "Yes, it s the Kady; and, thank the Lord, there s 
 Sam Merrill s boat too ! " 
 
 Mary was looking eagerly over Aunt Hetty s shoul 
 der ; she had kept her growing anxiety to herself. The 
 wind was raking the sea roughly, in great gusts. 
 
 Then, even then, while they both looked, the Kady 
 veered, went down, vanished, was blotted out before 
 their eyes !
 
 84 MARY CAMERON: A ROMANCE 
 
 Aunt Hetty s voice rang through the house with a 
 shriek Mary never forgot. Like a flash the girl ran to 
 the door and blew the horn to call her father. Aunt 
 Hetty, after that despairing cry, with dumb anguish 
 buried her face in her hands on the table. 
 
 Seizing the marine glasses, Mary looked strainingly 
 toward Ocean Point. Each moment seemed an hour, 
 and one of those hours that count for years in a life 
 time. She saw Sam Merrill crowd on more sail, run 
 his boat swiftly to the spot where the Kady went 
 down, and luff up into the wind ; there seemed to be 
 a struggle, then the lighthouse boat righted and 
 headed homeward. 
 
 Captain Cameron heard the story. "Start up the 
 fire, Mary," he said, hurrying off to the wharf. Control 
 ling her own terror, Mary tried to comfort Aunt 
 Hetty, who did not speak, did not even look up when 
 the girl insisted that Jack might have been saved. 
 
 The strong northwest wind brought the staunch 
 cutter, all sail set, into the cove like a flash. Ocean 
 Point was only a mile distant. 
 
 " He is saved ! They re bringing him ! " cried Mary. 
 
 Aunt Hetty roused herself and stood upright, clutch 
 ing the table, her face set, ready for the worst.
 
 OF FISHERMAN S ISLAND. 85 
 
 Slowly the two men came, carrying Jack Jack, 
 whose bounding step had left the house only a few 
 hours before. 
 
 " There s life in him yet," said Sam. They placed 
 the limp figure on the old lounge, and began stripping 
 the clothing from the unconscious body. 
 
 "Yes, his heart beats"; Captain Cameron was 
 bending to listen. 
 
 It seemed that the cold of the numbed body could 
 never be overcome. They rubbed until arms ached 
 and hope almost died. Not a word passed Aunt 
 Hetty s lips, but she fought like grim death for her 
 boy s life. 
 
 Sam told the story, a few words at a time. 
 
 "You see, I was runnin off to the westward, an 
 did n t get so much of that perticular squall, but I had 
 to handle the cutter lively, I tell you. Then I looked 
 out for Jack, an there was the peak of the Kady just 
 goin under ! I tell you, the cold sweat stood out all 
 over me. I see Jack s head in the water, an I h isted 
 my jib in a jiffy, an set over to him. Then t was nip 
 an tuck if I could get him in, but as luck had it, the 
 wind held up a bit, an I luffed the cutter up into it, 
 brought her round, watched my chance, an made a
 
 86 MARY CAME EON: A ROMANCE 
 
 grab at him. He was pretty nigh beat out, but he had 
 life enough left to help get himself in he cl had holt 
 of one o them boat knees that drifted off. Then he 
 just collapsed, went over in a heap. I clapped my 
 coat over him, resked keepiu the sails all set, an 
 headed for home." 
 
 At last Jack stirred, opened his eyes, shut them, 
 opened them again, and tried to raise himself, only to 
 fall back, half swooning, as he asked, " Where am 
 I and where s the Kady?" 
 
 While Aunt Hetty sat by her son, after he had re 
 vived again and fallen into a heavy sleep, Sam finished 
 his story. 
 
 I know Jack must a had the sheet in his hand, he 
 would n t a made it fast in such a wind ; but I reckon 
 it caught on a block when he let it go. There s fifteen 
 fathom of water out there, an the Kady must have 
 gone to the bottom like a streak, cause there waru t a 
 sign o her when I got there cept a few pieces of wood 
 rtoatin round." 
 
 Immediately on waking, Jack asked again, Where s 
 the Kady? " 
 
 " She s foundered, Jack ; gone plumb down." Sam s 
 voice was full of sympathy.
 
 OF FISHERMAN S ISLAND. 87 
 
 Jack put his hands over his face and turned to the 
 wall. After a while, to rouse him, Captain Camei-on 
 asked, " You did n t have your sheet fast, did you? " 
 
 tk Of course not, in that wind." Jack showed a 
 flushed, indignant face. " I had it free, but when I 
 brought the rudder round, the sheet caught on some 
 thing, a block, I suppose, and the first thing I knew I 
 was in the water, and the Kady was going down, 
 yes, I remember, she went down under my very 
 eyes." 
 
 " Just what I told em ; I knew you was too good a 
 sailor to make the mistake of fastenin your sheet," 
 said Sam, soothingly. 
 
 Jack had been in the icy water over ten minutes, 
 and his system, young and vigorous as it was, recov 
 ered very slowly from the shock. But though his 
 strength came back, his energy did not. He had 
 worked over the Kady until he knew every board and 
 every nail in her, and the loss of the boat seemed to 
 sap his life. Day after day he sat listlessly all the 
 morning, often all the afternoon, at Mary s kitchen 
 window, leaning back in the old stuffed rocking-chair, 
 and looking out at the spot where the Kady went 
 down ; he could see the place best from here. His
 
 88 MARY CAMERON: A ROMANCE 
 
 blue eyes had a dull, preoccupied look, be lost his 
 ruddy color, and his hands grew thin and yellow. 
 
 Aunt Hetty stayed alone at home. "I can t bear 
 to go with Jack, miserable as I am away from him," 
 she told Mary one day, with a dry sob in her voice. 
 
 Day by day Mary grew more remorseful. "Jack 
 would n t have gone, would n t have lost the Ka.dy, if 
 I had n t asked him to go," she reproached herself 
 continually. One day he refused to eat any dinner ; 
 and that afternoon, Mary, seeing him so thin and wist 
 ful, burst out crying. Jack looked up in astonish 
 ment. She lifted her beseeching brown eyes full of 
 tears : " O Jack, Jack ! I can t bear to see you so 
 wretched. It s all my fault for letting you go that 
 day. I m going to tell Aunt Hetty so." 
 
 Jack s eyes kindled with something of the old life : 
 " I was going anyway, Mary, to get those boat knees ; 
 don t ever think of telling my mother I went for you."
 
 OF FISHERMAN S ISLAND. 89 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 " When old ocean roars 
 And heaves huge surges to the trembling shores ; 
 The groaning hanks are burst with bellowing sound. 
 The rocks remurmur and the deeps rebound." 
 
 - The Iliad. 
 
 IT was the last short day of the old year, a day 
 to remember those at sea, and to be thankful that 
 you are safe on shore. 
 
 " Go and bring Aunt Hetty to supper," Mary had 
 begged her father; "Jack says he d rather stay 
 here." 
 
 Captain Cameron came along the worn footpath 
 ahead of Aunt Hetty to keep the buffeting wind from 
 her. The waves were leaping high across the cove, 
 from ledge to wharf. "Guess twas lucky I put 
 extra moorin s on the boats," he said, "an I don t 
 know s they 11 stand it now." 
 
 T 
 
 There was a momentous weight of silence in the 
 gray air, a temporary lull in the wild wind, which had 
 shrieked all day in fury, after a week of raw, cold 
 fog. The dry, brown-crusted earth, caked and hard, 
 showed icy splinters of frost. Early in the day,
 
 90 MARY CAMERON: A ROMANCE 
 
 dozens of fishing vessels fled into Boothbay Harbor, 
 but not a boat ventured out. Toward night the 
 Boston-bound Bangor steamer put into Boothbay, an 
 unprecedented thing. 
 
 "We must celebrate New Year s eve," said Mary, 
 after supper, "and have a fire in the other room." 
 Of late she had abandoned the best room. Jack liked 
 better to sit by the kitchen window, and Captain 
 Cameron, with the habit of simple-lived men, pre 
 ferred the kitchen fire in the evening. The old man 
 was rather feeble this winter "getting old and 
 rusty," he said and it was harder for him to keep 
 the wood pile replenished ; Mary, noticing this, had 
 the more willingly foregone her fires. 
 
 "My! those flames make my flesh creep; it s 
 just like they was hissin and groanin over the wicked 
 ness they ve seen committed," said Aunt Hetty, with 
 a burst of imagination, as the wood flashed forth 
 green and blue and copper-colored flames. 
 
 Jack sat moodily looking into the fire, and Aunt 
 Hetty gave herself up to being dismal. "No, I don t 
 want to hear any stories, real or make-believe," she 
 answered, when Mary suggested reading Dickens 
 " Christmas Carol" or that her father tell sea stories.
 
 OF FISHERMAN S ISLAND. 91 
 
 Finally, finding her attempts to enliven the little 
 party of no avail, Mary said, " We may as well go 
 back to the kitchen," for the rising wind flung shrifts 
 of smoke into their faces and blew the ashes over the 
 room. 
 
 Aunt Hetty, with a hesitancy new to her, delayed 
 going home. " Guess I 11 take a look at the weather," 
 she said about eight o clock. As she put her head 
 out of the door, a burst of sleety rain dashed into her 
 face, and a gust of wind whirled through the room. 
 She hastily closed the door. 
 
 " Don t let s go home," entreated Jack. 
 
 "Stay all night," urged Mary. 
 
 " I don t believe we could get home now," Aunt 
 Hetty admitted reluctantly. 
 
 "By the looks of things, we ain t any of us likely 
 to take much rest this night," said Captain Cameron ; 
 " it s goin to be a regular Tan-toaster." 
 
 Never since they came to the island h ad the ele 
 ments racked them with such fury. The waves lifted 
 up their voices, the island shook, the wind screamed 
 and moaned at doors and windows, and at last beat 
 out the fire. 
 
 Toward midnight the storm lashed itself into
 
 92 MARY CAMERON: A JtOMAXCE 
 
 greater force. Forks of lightning illumined the dark 
 ness, and the face of the sea in those flashes black, 
 swollen, angry was awful to behold. 
 
 "Will the house go, David?" gasped Aunt Hetty, 
 terrified with the might of the wind. 
 
 "No, Mehitable ; it s built upon a strong rock 
 foundation," answered Captain Cameron steadily. 
 Tempests were as nought to him. 
 
 They were sitting, wrapped in coats and shawls, 
 around the table, waiting, not for the passing of the 
 old year, not for daylight yet, not for the ceasing of 
 the storm ; but waiting with the endurance learned 
 from living by the sea. 
 
 Then the sleety snow began ; hissing, lashing 
 against the windows, it broke two panes of glass. 
 Instantly the wind blew out the light. 
 
 Mary hastily stuffed her shawl into the gap, and 
 Captain Cameron sprang to light the old horn lantern. 
 Aunt Hetty wrung her hands mutely. 
 
 The clock from the corner began sounding the 
 close of the old year. 
 
 Captain Cameron put the lantern upon the table, 
 and, taking down his worn Bible from the shelf behind 
 the stove, opened it and read the Psalm beginning,
 
 OF FISHERMAN S ISLAND. 93 
 
 "Out of the deep have I cried unto thee, O Lord"; 
 then, falling upon his knees, he prayed aloud for all 
 those in peril on the sea, for all wanderers on the face 
 of the earth, for themselves, that they might find 
 their peace in the new year. 
 
 Jack moved nearer his mother and put his hand in 
 hers ; his father was out at sea. 
 
 Captain Cameron replaced the Bible on the shelf, 
 and, after trying ineffectually to light the fire, seated 
 himself on the lounge to wait again. 
 
 " Lie down, father dear," said Mary. He yielded ; 
 and after covering him tenderly with an old great 
 coat, she drew her chair close to his side 
 
 The old man s thoughts came back from his son, 
 away now these ten years, to his daughter, whose 
 waving hair, catching the light from the lantern, 
 seemed the only other bright spot in the room. 
 
 Despite the stark storm outside, there was peace in 
 that little kitchen. 
 
 They moved occasionally, through the long night 
 watches, to shake off the numbing cold. Almost the 
 only sound in the room came from the clock s ticking, 
 or the sudden flare of the lantern. 
 
 At length the gray dawn, stealing in, roused them.
 
 94 MARY CAMERON: A ROMANCE 
 
 The world outside was covered with snow, deep and 
 close-packed. 
 
 Captain Cameron found he could start a fire. Mary, 
 her fingers stinging with the cold, made some strong 
 coffee and brought a cupful to Aunt Hetty, against 
 whose shoulder Jack had fallen asleep. 
 
 Just then there came a heavy pounding at the wood 
 shed door. Jack woke with a start. " What s that? " 
 he exclaimed. 
 
 Captain Cameron hurried to the door. 
 
 Three men stood there, and a huge black dog, ris 
 ing on its haunches, looked like another man. 
 
 "We ve been wrecked, sir," said one of the men, 
 who proved to be the captain ; "we re from Nova 
 Scotia, an our schooner went ashore, about midnight, 
 on some rocks out here." 
 
 Without waiting to hear more, Captain Cameron 
 brought the men to the kitchen fire ; and the ship 
 wrecked captain, a man of few words, finished his 
 story, while Mary hurried to make more coffee. 
 
 "I didn t know where we was, but I knew it was 
 rocks we d struck, for we drifted right off. I could 
 feel the schooner settlin and I knew we could n t 
 pump her out, so we launched a boat, though it did n t
 
 OF FISHERMAN 1 *! ISLAND. 95 
 
 seem much use in that livin sea ; but, in about a min 
 ute, we was flung ashore on a rocky beach place." 
 
 "You must have struck on the Hypocrites, drifted 
 to the southward, an been thrown up on the bar," 
 interrupted Captain Cameron. 
 
 " It was land, that s all we knew or cared," the 
 captain went on ; "we could n t see a thing but snow, 
 so we crouched close together with the dog to keep 
 warm, an when it grew light, it stopped snowin an 
 we saw your chimney. We re nigh to frozen an 
 famished, sir." 
 
 ""Whatever we have is yours," said Captain Cam 
 eron, simply. For a moment at the door he had dared 
 hope one of the men might prove to be his son. 
 
 The great dog, standing on its haunches, begged 
 for food, thumping the floor with its tail. Jack s 
 laugh rang out at the droll gravity of the dog, and 
 his laughter seemed to break the spell of the dreadful 
 night. 
 
 With every helpful instinct roused, Mary and Aunt 
 Hetty worked quickly to give the men hot coffee and 
 food, and to bandage their frost-bitten hands. 
 
 For hours after, the bitter wind, though lessening 
 iu fury, swept the cold green water about the rocks,
 
 96 MARY CAMERON: A ROMANCE 
 
 tearing its surface into long, glittering waves. Mary s 
 rowboat and Captain Cameron s dory had been washed 
 away ; his cutter was the only boat in the cove now. 
 
 The house was almost snowed under. It took Cap 
 tain Cameron the entire morning, with what help the 
 men could give, to make a path through the gully to 
 the barn. The two cows were safe, as the stout barn 
 had withstood the storm ; so had the boathouse, 
 but the fishhouse on the point had fallen in. 
 
 How Mary s tired body and heart ached that night, 
 with the work and strain of the last forty-eight hours ! 
 Aunt Hetty, unable to go home, was cross and irri 
 table. Jack, feverishly nervous, gazed out of the win 
 dow all day his boat would be sunk deeper now 
 than ever. Captain Cameron, with the shovelling and 
 the unusual work, looked bent and aged. Their pro 
 visions had been heavily taxed, and it had been trying 
 to have the strange men about. But Mary s courage 
 had not failed. At nightfall she buried her face in 
 the dog s soft, black fur, and felt a glow of unselfish 
 happiness in her heart. 
 
 When the sun burst forth the second day it brought 
 neither warmth nor cheer, only a clearer shaft of cold 
 from the deep blue sky. For another day there was
 
 OF FISHERMAN S ISLAND. 97 
 
 hardly a sail in sight, though occasionally a fishing 
 vessel scudded past under bare poles ; the Bangor 
 steamboat set out late the second afternoon. 
 
 Captain Cameron s boat could not have lived in the 
 high sea, not even to reach Ram Island. The ship 
 wrecked men, rough and honest, fearing to trespass 
 on the kindness of strangers, kept themselves in the 
 boathouse, and slept on the hay in the barn under 
 old coverlids. They helped break the path to Aunt 
 Hetty s house and to the well, where the salt water 
 had to be dipped out ; for the wind on that wild night 
 carried the beach south of the house back into the 
 marsh about eight feet, and there was a foot or more 
 of water in the well. 
 
 The third day the wind shifted to west southwest, 
 to stay. By nightfall a steady rain set in, reduced 
 the snowdrifts so that the bare ground showed again, 
 freshened the well, and best of all, beat down the sea. 
 
 The men were impatient to be off, and Captain 
 Cameron started with them early on the fourth morn 
 ing. They said good-by with awkward thanks, and 
 the huge, gentle dog followed them slowly. With a 
 sudden thought the captain turned, whistled the dog 
 close to him, and asked Mary bluntly :
 
 98 MARY CAMERON: A ROMANCE 
 
 " Would you like him to keep?" 
 
 "Oh, may I have him?" Mary s face was aglow 
 in a moment. 
 
 "He s yours," answered the captain gallantly, giv 
 ing the dog s head a farewell stroke; "stay with the 
 lady, Skipper." 
 
 Just before the men started, Mary overheard 
 them talking about sending a diver dov/n to the 
 wrecked schooner, but the captain dismissed the 
 subject by saying, "There ain t u hundred dollars 
 worth of stuff in the old hulk, an she s twenty 
 fathom deep. I 11 just let her go, an get what 
 insurance I can." 
 
 Captain Cameron brought back no letters, only a 
 bundle of papers from Judge Weston and another 
 package of books addressed to Mary in the distinctive 
 handwriting. 
 
 " Boothbay folks tell me twas the worst storm 
 for twenty years," the old man said; "there s been 
 wrecks all along the coast." And this report was veri 
 fied, day by day, for weeks after, by the sea s casting 
 up on the island shores all sorts of spoil broken 
 oars and spars, dishes, casks of ship s biscuit, dead 
 birds, tattered bits of sail nothing worse, though
 
 OF FISHERMAN S ISLAND. 99 
 
 Mary kept away from the beaches for dread of what 
 she might see. 
 
 Two months had passed without a word from Rob 
 Weston. Mary had almost forgotten to count the 
 time these last eventful weeks. 
 
 On his next trip to Boothbay, Captain Cameron 
 carried a passenger Mary, who was intent turning 
 over a plan which had shaped itself in her mind. 
 
 While her father did his errands, Mary went to the 
 Custom House, found an address in the Marine 
 Register for a letter she had written, and then mailed 
 the letter. 
 
 On the homeward sail she took her father into her 
 confidence. He shook his head deprecatingly at first, 
 but when she said, looking into his face with a tender 
 little smile, " I know it will make him well ; I must 
 do it," he looked back at her with proud, loving eyes 
 and did not object again. 
 
 Still no letter from Rob. But Mary was waiting 
 with feverish eagerness for something else now. 
 
 It came a letter in a cramped handwriting ; and 
 a second letter was speedily despatched to Portland. 
 
 One afternoon Jack was sitting in his accustomed 
 place, idly turning the leaves of the new almanac.
 
 100 MARY CAMERON: A ROMANCE 
 
 Glancing up, his eyes as usual rested on the same spot, 
 off Ocean Point. 
 
 " Come here, Mary," he said excitedly. "What s 
 that tng doing out there?" 
 
 "What can it be?" exclaimed Man 7 , coming up 
 behind him. She had been watching the black steam- 
 tug for five minutes from the pantry window, with a 
 fast beating heart. 
 
 Something was going on. Jack watched with 
 growing interest. "What can it be?" he asked 
 again and again, speculating and questioning, with 
 out guessing the truth. Finally, darkness cut off 
 his view. 
 
 Then a great wonder happened. Into the cove 
 early the next morning came that same black tug, 
 towing a water-logged, barnacle-studded boat none 
 other than the Kady. 
 
 After the first excitement was over, Aunt Hetty 
 called Mary into her house, and into her bedroom. 
 She broke down and cried a bit, leaning on Mary s 
 strong, young shoulder ; then she dried her eyes with 
 the corner of her apron, and said, " This 11 cure him, 
 Mary. Did you see him run down to the wharf? He 
 acts different already. Oh, Mary, how did you hap-
 
 OF FISHERMAN S ISLAND. 101 
 
 pen to think of doing what his own mother did n t 
 think of?" And Mary told her. 
 
 "Did it cost a whole hundred dollars?" Aunt 
 Hetty insisted on knowing. 
 
 " Yes," answered Mary, reluctantly. 
 
 Aunt Hetty went to the side of the bed, took out 
 from between the feather bed and the straw mattress 
 a long stocking of blue homespun yarn, seated herself 
 on the bed, poured out a stream of silver dollars, 
 bills, and small change, and began counting it. 
 
 "What are you doing, Aunt Hetty?" demanded 
 Mary, with a singular note in her voice. 
 
 Aunt Hetty looked up. Mary had never spoken 
 like that to her. "I m going to pay you back, as 
 far s I can. I m poor, but I don t want to be 
 beholden to anybody." 
 
 "You shall not pay me back, not a cent," said 
 Mary in the same tone. " I owed that to Jack." 
 She turned and went out of the room, and Aunt 
 Hetty knew that the matter was ended. 
 
 "You planned it all yourself, Mary?" questioned 
 Jack, coming in at noon to warm himself and to go 
 over the story again. He had spent the entire morn 
 ing hovering in ecstasy around the boat, looking her
 
 102 MARY CAMERON: A ROMANCE 
 
 over, handling her, even putting his fingers, with 
 fond tenderness, through the sail, for, eaten by the 
 salt water, it gave way at a touch. " You wrote to the 
 diver, and made all the arrangements, and took that 
 hundred dollars, all you had, oui of the bank ! Think 
 of it, the men on the tug said she was standing plumb 
 upright, my poor boat. The diver had to take out 
 the ballast, and the men said it was fine to see her 
 come to the surface." 
 
 He stopped a moment, he was weak yet ; then with 
 an effort he said, standing erect, his eyes gleaming 
 with new life, "Do you know, all the time I ve felt 
 as though I was down there with the Kady, cold and 
 alone, and going deeper down. I can t ever thank 
 you enough, Mary ! I must go right to work on her ! " 
 
 This was reward enough. Mary cried herself to 
 sleep that night from sheer relief and thankfulness. 
 
 For the first though not indeed for the last time 
 something of the deeper and nobler comprehension of 
 human weakness and of human suffering had been 
 revealed to her, something of that larger knowledge 
 without which the sense of duty can never be fully 
 acquired, nor the understanding of unselfish goodness, 
 nor the spirit of tenderness.
 
 OF FISHERMAN S ISLAND. 103 
 
 CHAPTP:R ix. 
 
 The Father loos^ih Winter s chain, 
 The truf Creator, who doth reign 
 O er Times and Seasons, doth again 
 Unwind the Wave-ropes that the Main 
 Confines within its Span." 
 
 Beowulf. 
 
 " ~FT~P March hill," to the border of April, had come 
 ^-J the new year, begun in such great stress. 
 Fisherman s Island was bare of snow, and the soil, 
 thinly covering the rocks, had quickly dried. 
 
 All day long the sound of Jack s hammer and saw 
 rang out from the boathouse. The Kady was afloat 
 again, thoroughly overhauled, and as good as new; 
 Jack had sailed triumphantly over to see Sam Merrill 
 on his first trip. Now he was building a new rowboat 
 for Mary, " the prettiest in all Boothbay Harbor," he 
 declared it should be. Every morning and every night 
 he ran out to the south shore and jumped a hundred 
 times from one shelving rock to another, for the doc 
 tor had told him it would require vigorous exercise to 
 overcome the tendency to muscular stiffening. He
 
 104 MARY CAMERON: A ROMANCK 
 
 was fast regaining elasticity of body ; that of mind 
 had returned in one supreme flash with the Kady. 
 
 Mary fell again into her habit of taking long walks. 
 During her anxiety over Jack she had forgotten to 
 think so often of Rob Weston. But now that Jack 
 was himself again, and winter was relaxing its hold, 
 her mind reverted to the past and to herself. She had 
 only a half hope of Rob Westou s return from Europe 
 a hope that grew dimmer as the days went on. 
 
 After ten weeks silence a letter had come. She 
 had read it so often that the words were engraved on 
 her mind ; but she had not answered it. 
 
 In the letter Rob told her of having changed his 
 studio, of feeling more at home in Paris, and liking 
 the routine better. And he continued : " A few weeks 
 ago when I was working in the Louvre, copying or 
 trying to copy a Botticelli madonna, who should come 
 along but Miss Kendall and her father. I dined with 
 them that night at the Continental Hotel, and of 
 course have seen them occasionally since ; they are to 
 be here a month longer. 
 
 " Thank you for such a good letter. I should have 
 answered earlier if I had not been so busy with mov 
 ing and getting settled in my new studio. I am look-
 
 OF FISHERMAN S ISLAND. 105 
 
 ing forward with much pleasure to hearing from you, 
 and especially to seeing you again." 
 
 Not one definite word about coming home, and 
 how the mention of Miss Kendall rankled ! 
 
 There was no one to whom Mary could open her 
 heart, no one to save her from the morbid revulsion 
 of feeling that set in. Aunt Hetty, the one woman 
 at hand, had common ground of interest with the girl 
 about everyday matters only ; and though there was a 
 strong affection between them, born of good offices 
 given and returned, their natures were totally differ 
 ent the one self-sufficient) intensely practical, pro 
 saic ; the other young, capable of generous enthusi 
 asm and warm devotion, and feeding her mind on the 
 noblest ideals of literature. 
 
 If there had been anybody or anything to divert 
 the girl s mind, she would not have drifted back into 
 depression ; for on that New Year s night the scales 
 had fallen from her eyes, showing her to herself, wil 
 ful, unsubmissive, making a substance out of an un 
 reality ; and there had come to her a vision of the 
 truth that only the Infinite Love can satisfy the human 
 heart. Later she might learn the larger truth that, in 
 the highest sense, God s love and human love are one.
 
 106 MARY CAME EON: A ROMANCE 
 
 But the New Year s vision dimmed as the days 
 lengthened. In spite of herself she clung to the old 
 ideal ; she could no more help this passionate fidelity 
 of temperament than the eyes she saw with. And 
 then began that desperate struggle between courage 
 and despair, between light and darkness, between 
 patient submission and mad revolt, which all sensi 
 tive and generous natures must wage in their own 
 souls at least once, perhaps many times, in their 
 lives. 
 
 Memory at such times plays like an electric storm. 
 Incidents long forgotten came back with singular 
 vividness, and Mary saw the past as she had not seen 
 it while it was the present. Remembrances of her 
 mother, recollections of her earlier years, all the in 
 cidents relating to Rob Weston, recurred with intense 
 clearness. And out of her contest Mary passed from 
 girlhood into womanhood. 
 
 The early April day was heavenly fresh and full of 
 promise. Aunt Hetty was dipping candles, an econ 
 omy she had practised since they came to Fisherman s, 
 and Mary, sitting in the kitchen doorway, was 
 watching her, as one after another she dipped the 
 already coated strings suspended from sticks, a dozen
 
 OF FISHERMAN S ISLAND. 107 
 
 strings to a stick, into the great kettle of hot tallow 
 on the stove. 
 
 " What ever is the matter with you, Mary? " Aunt 
 Hetty spoke sharply. She had come of hard-working 
 inland people, and her untiring thrift and energy were 
 in marked contrast to Mary s more leisurely ways, 
 inherited from sea-going ancestry. " You sit mopsin 
 an mopin round just the way girls do when they ve 
 got a beau. Mebbe you re thinkin of that Rob 
 Weston," she added with cruel bluntness ; the storm 
 of criticism had been gathering for some time. 
 " Come to think of it, you have n t been the same 
 since he went away. But I d have more spunk. I 
 would n t waste my time thinkin about a man who 
 did n t even trouble to write to me." 
 
 "If you please, I haven t answered his last letter," 
 Mary replied with flashing eyes, her pride stung by 
 Aunt Hetty s thrust. 
 
 k So you have been hearin from him ! " Aunt Hetty 
 saw the disturbance in Mary s sensitive face and 
 spoke of something else ; she had scored her point. 
 Then, because she had the girl s interest warmly 
 at heart, before Captain Cameron started over to the 
 harbor with fresh fish that day, she said to him :
 
 108 MARY CAMERON: A ROMANCE 
 
 " Mary seems kinder ailin . I mistrust it s because 
 sbe spends too much time thinkin about that Rob 
 Western." 
 
 Captain Cameron shook his head sturdily. " No, 
 you are mistaken ; Mary s too sensible a girl for 
 that." 
 
 Seeing that she made no impression, Aunt Hetty 
 turned homeward, commenting to herself, " What do 
 men, pack of foolish critters that they are, know 
 about girls, anyway? " 
 
 Unable to stay indoors, after her father went, Mary 
 worked all day in her garden the fenced-off square 
 south of the house, which was a wilderness of sticks 
 and straw and rubbish from the last year. Late in 
 the afternoon she sat down on the porch, resting her 
 face upon the palm of her hand. 
 
 The song sparrows twittered near her she had fed 
 them all through March, and they hopped around her 
 fearlessly the swallows darted in and out under the 
 eaves of the boathouse, the pound of hammer and 
 scrape of saw mingled with Jack s whistling as he 
 worked. Curling blue smoke rose from the chimney 
 of the little brown house across the cove Aunt Hetty 
 was making soap this pleasant afternoon. Across tne
 
 OF FISHERMAN S ISLAND. 109 
 
 quiet water came the calls of the Merrill children, 
 romping around Ram Island. 
 
 Mary brushed back, with an impatient gesture, the 
 cloud of hair which the light wind blew into her eyes. 
 Her face was more delicate in contour than a year 
 ago, and the exercise in her garden had brought u flush 
 into her cheeks, grown so pale now. 
 
 The afternoon was oppressively still. Mary knew 
 her father would not be at home until late. Every 
 body in her world was busy. She was too tired to 
 work longer, and she felt wretchedly alone ; even 
 Skipper had deserted her for Jack. 
 
 She could endure it no longer. Going into the 
 house, she threw a little red shawl over her shoulders, 
 for the air was growing chilly, and wandered, bare 
 headed, toward the south shore. Wrapping the shawl 
 closer, she sat down and leaned against a tall, moss- 
 draped fir tree, standing close to the rocks which 
 shelved down, tier below tier, worn smooth by cen 
 turies of waves. 
 
 The tide was nearing its full. Over on the White 
 Island and Outer Heron the waves broke monoton 
 ously. The world might be empty of people, save for 
 a few distant sails. The mocking ocean spread miles
 
 110 MART CAMERON: A ROMANCE 
 
 and miles away to the horizon, a waste of water, be 
 tween her and Europe. 
 
 Aunt Hetty s words had rung in her mind all day ! 
 
 Except for the noise of the water, as the long 
 swells broke foaming, tumbling, frothing against the 
 rocks, there was no sound. 
 
 She thought the sense of loneliness, the silence, 
 would drive her mad. 
 
 Then the water s flinging, forceful activity riveted 
 her attention. The waves spent their force, were 
 splendidly shattered. Why not, like them, dash her 
 self with all her force against those rocks? Better 
 still, as the water slipped back from its strong up- 
 gathering, why not slip back with it? 
 
 What was life, anyway? What use was loving, 
 what use was anything? 
 
 Her mind began traveling over the old story again. 
 Why had she yielded to her feeling for Rob Weston ? 
 It was unworthy, without real foundation. She 
 blamed him hotly for his unintelligible looks, his im 
 pulsive actions, his mention of home-coming, and his 
 subsequent silence. Would it never end, this intoler 
 able torture of memory and regret? Why not end it 
 now?
 
 OF FISHERMAN S ISLAND. Ill 
 
 The low, whispering wind seemed to call her, the 
 leaping waves beckoned with foam-wreathed arras. 
 Her brain almost reeled, for the seething water, close 
 up to her now, was one dizzying whirl. 
 
 In despair, to save herself, she flung her arms 
 around the tree trunk. For a moment that seemed 
 to bend forward with her. Then it held her back. 
 
 How long she clung to it she could not tell. The 
 tide, turning, ebbed a little with a sullen sound. 
 
 By and by she dared unloose her arms from the 
 tree, and she tried to rise, but sank back, too weak to 
 stand. 
 
 A sound of rushing through the dry grass, a light 
 bound, and Skipper s cold nose was thrust in her face. 
 A moment later Jack came running out to take his 
 evening exercise. 
 
 "Why, Mary! What s the matter? It s long 
 past supper time, and your father was coming into the 
 cove just as I started. Guess you ve been asleep," 
 he said, appearing not to notice her strained eyes, her 
 drooping figure. 
 
 He began jumping from rock to rock, and his energy 
 revived her. Skipper kept on licking her hands lov 
 ingly. When Jack was ready to go she summoned
 
 112 MARY CAMERON: A ROMANCE 
 
 strength to rise, steadying herself by putting her 
 hand on Skipper s head, and she held it there as the 
 dog walked hack with her close to her side. Jack 
 whistled to save her from talking, and he helped her 
 gently over the rough places. 
 
 As her mind recovered itself in that walk home 
 ward, Mary wondered what would have happened hud 
 she slipped off into the water ; she shuddered to think 
 how near she came to it. Her father and Jack would 
 have walked over the island all night, calling and 
 looking for her, while her body was floating off with 
 the undertow of the tide ; and she pictured their gradu 
 ally growing conviction that she had ventured too far 
 out on the rocks and been washed away. But her 
 poor old father would not have given up the search 
 till the last ray of hope were gone. 
 
 A bright fire was crackling in the kitchen stove, and 
 the teakettle was singing merrily when she entered 
 the house. 
 
 "Hello, my little girl!" said Captain Cameron, 
 depositing an armful of wood by the stove, " you re 
 out late. My ! how cold your hands are. I m afraid 
 you ain t feelin well," he went on, looking at her 
 anxiously, k an I guess you d better have a change.
 
 OF FISHERMAN S ISLAND. 113 
 
 I saw Mis Morton over to Boothbay, an she sent 
 pertikelar word for you to come an make her a visit, 
 an have a good time. Aunt Hetty 11 look out for me 
 all right." He had pondered over Aunt Hetty s 
 words, found an answering echo of apprehension in 
 his own heart, and had gone to consult Mrs. Morton, 
 an old friend of his wife s. 
 
 Mary put her arms around her father s neck and 
 laid her cool cheek close to his. " Let me stay with 
 you, father. I don t care for the things other girls 
 like ; I only want to stay with you always." 
 
 And the gentle-hearted old man answered, " My 
 daughter is so precious to me that I don t want her to 
 go, any more than she wants to."
 
 114 MARY CAMERON: A ROMANCE 
 
 CHAFFER X. 
 
 "It is Nature s highest reward to a true, simple, great 
 soul that he thus gets to be a part of herself." 
 
 Thomas Carlyle. 
 
 IN the exuberance of her sense of escape and con 
 quest, Mary was merciless with herself at first, 
 as strong-natured young people are wont to be. 
 Watching her those days, Captain Cameron thought 
 she was growing more like her mother. 
 
 It took rare courage to begin life anew here in 
 this island isolation. The alternatives were simple, 
 loving companionship with nature through flowers, 
 birds, sunsets or a lapsing into mere negative ex 
 istence given over to narrow concerns. 
 
 Instinctively Mary made the finer .choice, and un 
 consciously she began to bind nature to herself with 
 fellowships which for a time quieted the need of 
 human association. She watched the quivering waters 
 curled by the breath of the morning under the deep 
 ening dawn, each day bringing a world newborn ; she 
 opened her eyes to the glory of the sunset cloud- 
 worlds, and always she heard the mighty sea chanting
 
 OF FISHERMAN S ISLAND. 115 
 
 that mystic and eternal hymn which none may hear 
 without awe, which no musician may learn. She 
 fathomed countless secrets of the air and sea, count 
 less signs of the heavens ; she saw and heard and felt 
 much of that which, though old as the heavens and 
 the earth, is yet eternally new and eternally young 
 with the holiness of beauty. 
 
 Slowly outside her windows the world awoke, the 
 grass brightened, the willow buds swelled and grew, 
 until the green and gold glory of the spring was upon 
 the island. 
 
 Touched into harmony, Mary s nature awoke too, 
 healed, though not satisfied quite, by the magic power 
 of the air and the sea, whose strength seemed to enter 
 into her. Her eyes caught anew the sea mystery, her 
 outdoor life gave her a fresh, clear color, with sound 
 sleep at night. 
 
 Like Mary, Jack was all alive with the spring. He 
 had finished Mary s rowboat and was building new 
 lobster traps to replace the winter losses. 
 
 The air was full of tender balm, and the soft lap 
 of water on the rugged shore came in through the 
 open south window of the best room, where Man 7 sat 
 in her speak-a-bit corner, books and sewing piled high
 
 116 MARY CAMERON: A ROMANCE 
 
 around her, a fire burning on the hearth to dry off the 
 dampness of the mid-April afternoon the winter s 
 storms had brought great quantities of driftwood 
 almost to their doors. Skipper lay stretching and 
 dozing before the fire. Outside, through the soft 
 showers, the robins called joyously. 
 
 Jack, dressed in oilskins, an old sou easter tipped 
 back on his head, appeared at the open window. His 
 face was brown and ruddy now. 
 
 " I ve got to quit working on the new traps and go 
 to hauling the old ones with Uncle Charles," he said ; 
 "the Portland smack will be along any day now, and 
 we have n t got many lobsters in the cage. Come and 
 see us start, for luck, will you ? " 
 
 Glad of an excuse to go out of doors, Mary thrust 
 her arms into a yellow oilskin jacket and, with Skipper 
 at her heels, ran down bareheaded to watch the start. 
 
 "Shall I read the last lobster law to you?" she 
 asked. 
 
 " We know it, never you fear," replied Jack ; " the 
 fish warden hasn t caught us yet." 
 
 Lobstering off the Maine coast has been more and 
 more restricted in the last dozen years. Each doubt 
 ful-sized lobster must be measured, and the "short"
 
 OF FISHERMAN S ISLAND. 117 
 
 ones, under ten and a half inches, dropped back into 
 the sea, else if the fish warden happens along he can 
 collect a fine of five dollars l for each delinquent 
 lobster. The Camerons had, as usual, about a hun 
 dred traps down around the island, and "hauling the 
 traps" meant at least two hours of hard work mere 
 muscular work, however, for as Jack said, " A man 
 does n t need to know much more than a lobster does 
 to catch him." 
 
 Captain Cameron sat in the stern of the boat, his 
 silver-gray hair showing below his black sou easter, 
 a serene smile lighting his face as he turned to call 
 good -by to Mary ; Jack was speeding the boat ahead 
 with strong strokes. 
 
 " It ll be clear when you come back, your kelp is 
 almost dry," cried Mar} , waving the long festoon of 
 kelp, the fisherman s barometer, which hung, a fan 
 tastic ornament, on the fish house. 
 
 Already, overhead, blue sky was showing through 
 the clouds. Far away in the distance the sea spread it 
 self out in sleepy stillness. A huge fishhawk splashed 
 into the water, and Mary, watching, saw him rise with 
 a fish in his talons and fly southward. Skipper made 
 a jump in the air toward the bird. 
 
 1 Law of 1897.
 
 118 MARY GAMER OX: A ROMANCE 
 
 <k I haven t seen my fishhawks to-day," said Mary, 
 turning to follow the direction of the bird. " Come 
 on, Skipper." 
 
 Just beyond the rocky bar stood a tall, scraggy tree, 
 and its gnarled arms held a curious, bulky nest, to 
 which the same birds returned each year. The great 
 uncouth creatures had been a constant delight to 
 Mary, for their repairs upon the old nest home had 
 been carried on vigorously ever since their welcome 
 coming had foretold the early spring. It was a huge 
 nest, about three feet across and two feet deep, and 
 it looked like a great heap of brush, dry branches 
 and seaweed, as it was. 
 
 The fishhawks were half tame, and evidently did 
 not mind Mary s presence. She watched them while 
 they ate their supper, awkwardly balancing themselves 
 on the edge of the nest, then wheeling noisily away 
 only to return again and., after a queer nocturnal toilet, 
 settle themselves for the night. 
 
 The sun had vanished when Mary walked back 
 along the grassy footpath to the house, and the crim 
 son afterglow, warm and vivid, lay over the sea. The 
 robins were chirping good-night, a stray bluebird sang 
 "purity, purity," and a brown thrush, rare visitor,
 
 OF FISHERMAN 8 ISLAND. 119 
 
 swelling its slender throat, sang from the willow tree 
 as if its heart would break. The birds had hardly 
 been quiet a moment all day, and Mary had worked to 
 their music they seemed to her like little souls pour 
 ing themselves out in song. As there were few trees 
 on the island in which the birds could build, these 
 songsters were birds of passage, save the song spar 
 rows. 
 
 The heavy-laden dory was rounding the point a 
 half mile away. Mary rekindled the fire, started the 
 supper, and lighted a lamp to make her father s home 
 coming cheerful. The dory drew up to the lobster car, 
 and the two men quickly transferred the lobsters from 
 the dory. They did not come directly home, but rowed 
 across to the company s wharf, though it was darken 
 ing fast ; and Mary knew they were going to catch 
 herring for the next day s bait, so she took a thick 
 wrap and went to look on, seating herself on the 
 wharf, Skipper beside her. 
 
 "Good luck, father?" 
 
 "Good luck, daughter; we ve got risin two hun 
 dred lobsters." That was all ; fishermen at work do 
 not talk much. 
 
 The two men stretched the herring net, anchored it
 
 120 MARY CAMERON: A ROMANCE 
 
 at one end, and rowed a few rods away through the 
 phosphorescent water flashing with fish. Of a sudden 
 Jack turned the dory swiftly, and the fish were driven 
 like sheep into the net, which, when they struck it, 
 showed a long line of dull fire. Then the draught of 
 fishes was pulled in. 
 
 " Seems to me we fisher folks can understand the 
 Master s words better n most people, he taught so 
 much by things that has to do with fishin ," said Cap 
 tain Cameron meditatively, as he walked toward home 
 with Mary in the deepening evening. 
 
 So one peaceful day followed another. And Mary 
 felt that there was nothing more to be desired on 
 earth.
 
 OF FISHERMAN S ISLAND. 121 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 "The future does not come from before to meet us, but 
 comes streaming up from behind over our heads." 
 
 George Eliot. 
 
 A LETTER lay on the table for Mary. She had 
 just come in, flushed and glowing, from hunt 
 ing over the island with her father in search of the 
 cows, which stayed out all night now and had a trick 
 of getting lost. Evidently Sam Merrill had been to 
 the harbor. 
 
 It was from Mrs. Sargent, and it ran : 
 
 " Dear Miss Cameron, I have sad news for you 
 and your father. Our old friend Judge Weston, dear, 
 genial man, died last week, after a brief illness. I 
 know you will grieve over this sorely, as we do, but 
 you must try, as we are trying, to think of him as 
 blessedly released, for he suffered intensely during his 
 illness. 
 
 Mr. Sargent tells me there is something in the 
 will, just a remembrance, which concerns you. There 
 are the usual formalities of law the red tape has to 
 be untied and tied again, and it will help matters 
 greatly if you are on the spot. I have intended all 
 winter asking you here for a visit, and now this settles
 
 122 MARY CAMERON: A ROMANCE 
 
 it ; you must come as soon as possible, for a month at 
 least, and take more than a side glance at our old city 
 of Boston. We will make all our lions roar for you, 
 and I shall enjoy renewing my acquaintance with 
 streets and statues. We will investigate that splendid 
 Public Library and study the famous frescoes and the 
 sweet reasonableness of those women who float in 
 mid-air without wings or feet or any visible means of 
 locomotion. And we will see the State houses, old 
 and new, and hear a suffrage debate, we in fact, we 
 will have you see and hear it all. Cradle of Liberty, 
 Subway, Bunker Hill, and the symphony concert. 
 
 " I shall enjoy a visit from you, and be benefited by 
 it, too, young, strong, and full of savor from your 
 island home as you are, and the children are ready to 
 make you royally welcome. 
 
 Yours very cordially, 
 
 MARGARET K. SARGENT. 
 " NEWTON, April 23, 189-. 
 
 " P. S. Tell me what day you will come, and Mr. 
 Sargent will meet you in Boston." 
 
 Hardly had Mary finished reading her letter when 
 Captain Cameron came in to tell her the news of 
 Judge Weston s death, for Sam had heard it in Booth- 
 bay and had stopped in the boathouse to tell Jack. 
 
 Death had no fears for Captain Cameron ; he had
 
 OF FISHERMAN S ISLAND. 123 
 
 faced it too often, and now it was to him but the 
 opening of a door, the throwing off of the bodily 
 cloak. 
 
 The father had trained his daughter to a heritage of 
 his brave attitude, but her sobs would rise. The old 
 man soothed her. 
 
 " It s only the pain of separation that is hard, 
 Mary. The judge has just gone over that river where 
 we 11 all have to cross some day ; but there s a sure 
 pilot, a sure pilot, Mary," he said, smoothing back 
 her bright hair with his knotted hand. Yet his own 
 grief was greater, for this was a tried friend of his 
 early days ; and he was haunted, too, by the appre 
 hension that some change might send them forth from 
 the island home, which had been to him like a fair 
 haven unto a weary soul. 
 
 Mrs. Sargent s invitation, it was decided in family 
 council, must be accepted. Aunt Hetty s interest rose 
 to an unprecedented height. " I m goin to buy you a 
 new dress, a real pretty blue one, an a hat an some 
 ribbons," she said, with a burst of generosity. 
 
 It required all of Mary s ingenuity to keep Aunt 
 Hetty from purchasing the dress, and to make her con 
 tent with the quiet hat Mary chose, having observed
 
 124 MART CAMERON: A ROMANCE 
 
 Miss Kendall and Miss Merrick to some effect. One 
 journey to Boothbay sufficed for the preparations, yet 
 it was with many a misgiving that Mary packed her 
 limited wardrobe in the small leather-covered trunk 
 which, as Aunt Hetty said, " Your mother went on 
 her wedding journey with." 
 
 Going to Boston for the first time was a momen 
 tous event to Mary. She told her father something of 
 her clinging regret at leaving home, as they sat before 
 the driftwood fire for a good-night talk, her trunk all 
 packed. 
 
 " I should n t want you to feel any other way but 
 sorry to leave your old father ; but partings has to 
 be. Remember always there s One who orders our 
 goin s an our comin s, an trust yourself in his 
 hands." 
 
 Faith in the divine comes often to our hearts 
 through the human, and Mary rested herself ; n her 
 father s words that night, sleeping soundly. 
 
 But the old man s thoughts ran on far into the nigh t, 
 and their tenor was this: "My little daughter, all I 
 have in the world, is going away. Some day, soon, I 
 shall be drifting out on the ebb tide, and what will 
 become of her? Aunt Hetty isn t the one to satisfy
 
 OF FISHERMAN S ISLAND. 125 
 
 her. Dear Lord, send my boy Edwin home," he 
 softly prayed again and again. 
 
 There was no time to spare in the morning, for 
 Mary must leave Boothbay on the early boat, to con 
 nect at Bath with the Boston-bound train. 
 
 As Jack helped Mary into the boat, he thrust a small 
 box into her hand. " Open it when you get there," 
 he said, wringing her hand in good-by. 
 
 Aunt Hetty let her breakfast dishes stand unwashed 
 rare event and sailed over to the harbor "to get 
 some cotton cloth for sewing these long afternoons," 
 she carefully explained, unwilling to acknowledge that 
 she went to be company for Captain Cameron coming 
 back. She had promised Mary manifold times to 
 look out for him. 
 
 "If I was goin to Boston I sh d have to take a 
 compass to find my way round," Captain Cameron s 
 last words came in a cheerful voice, his face shining 
 with serenity. 
 
 " Be sure you take one of them parlor cars," was 
 Aunt Hetty s final injunction. " Folks do say things 
 ain t so likely to happen to you there." 
 
 It was a tender, tearful face that looked down from 
 the Nahanada s stem as the steamboat drew away
 
 126 MARY CAMERON: A ROMANCE 
 
 from the wharf, and the white flutter of Mary s hand 
 kerchief was visible until the boat vanished from sight 
 behind Mouse Island. 
 
 The intricacies of the Bath station were not great, 
 and Mary found the ride in the comfortable drawing- 
 room car a novel experience, increasing in interest. 
 She located the Bowdoin College buildings when the 
 train stopped at Brunswick. Then the Flying Yankee 
 train steamed in from up the Kennebec, and bore them 
 off to Portland like a flash. On the way to Ports 
 mouth she caught bewitching glimpses, across the 
 marshes, of the familiar ocean, which took her 
 thoughts swiftly back to her island home, and soon 
 the train drew in to the Northern Union Station.
 
 OF FISHERMAN S ISLAND. 127 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 " Music is love in search of a word." 
 
 " The age needs heart, t is tired of head." 
 
 Sidney Lanier. 
 
 IN a story the train would probably have run 
 off the track, or Mr. Sargent failed to appear at 
 the Boston station. But in real life, as a rule, trains 
 reach their destinations, and people keep their ap 
 pointments. 
 
 The tall, brown-bearded man recognized Mary in a 
 moment, as the passengers streamed from the inward 
 train. Almost before she knew it, they were in a cab, 
 the trunk strapped on behind, and whirling across 
 busy Boston. "Half a dollar extra if you make the 
 4.40 train at the Albany Station," Mr. Sargent said 
 to the cabman. 
 
 Nearly every man on the Newton train was buried 
 behind a newspaper, and a train that passed them 
 showed a blur of white at the windows. 
 
 " Has anything special happened?" asked Mary. 
 
 " No, they always read," replied Mr. Sargent, with 
 an amused twinkle in his eye.
 
 128 MARY CAMERON: A ROMANCE 
 
 "She s a restful, natural sort of girl," he had said 
 to himself, while she was describing her journey, in 
 her clear, low voice which had a musical turn, "and 
 she is dressed all right, I should say,"- man-fashion, 
 noticing general effect, " Mrs. Sargent need n t have 
 been troubled about that." 
 
 A crowd of prosperous-looking men and well- 
 gowned women got off at the Newton station, and 
 greetings were exchanged as one carriage after an 
 other drove away. Mary found herself with Mr. 
 Sargent in an open, green-cushioned carriage, drawn 
 by a bay horse and driven by a coachman in green, 
 bowling noiselessly past handsome houses fronted by 
 close-cut lawns. 
 
 "There s the Eliot Church, and there is Grace 
 Church and the new Hunnewell Clubhouse," said Mr. 
 Sargent, pointing out the places of interest ; and 
 presently they turned into the driveway which wound 
 up to the Sargents house. 
 
 A white-capped, white-aproned maid opened the 
 door, and little Katharine came dancing out the 
 same sweet-faced child who had sat on Judge 
 Weston s knee listening to fairy stories at the island 
 meeting two years before.
 
 OF FISHERMAN^ S ISLAND. 129 
 
 Mrs. Sargent was waiting in the spacious hall. 
 "We are very glad to see you, my dear," she said, 
 with a warm handshake ; and she liked the firm 
 grasp of Mary s hand. " You must consider yourself 
 one of the family while you are here." 
 
 Mary felt an added sense of cordial welcome when 
 the tall clock in the hall struck the half hour in the 
 same drowsy tone of the old clock at home. But 
 despite her level young head, she was glad to escape 
 early to her room that night, for the long elaborate 
 dinner, the brilliant lights, the opening world of new 
 interests, were bewildering. Just before she went to 
 bed she thought of Jack s gift, and opening the little 
 box, found ten tightly folded five dollar bills and, 
 written on a slip of paper, " Please get things for 
 yourself with it." 
 
 Thursday, the day after her arrival, Mary had gone 
 to Boston with Mrs. Sargent, and spent some of 
 Jack s money under the older woman s supervision. 
 To-day they had lunched in town, and now Mrs. Sar 
 gent had left Mary in her own seat, in Music Hall, to 
 hear the Friday afternoon symphony rehearsal. 
 
 Waiting for the music to begin, Mary eagerly 
 watched the people, as from the balcony where she
 
 130 MAttV CAMERON: A ROMANCE 
 
 sat she hud her first vision of a sea of faces ; and she 
 idly wondered how many times the little house on 
 Fisherman s Island could be set down within the 
 hall which seemed immensely large to her, though 
 she was getting used to vastness now in the way of 
 buildings. 
 
 There came a momentary hush, followed by the short 
 adagio movement of a famous symphony. At first 
 the music simply formed a background for her 
 thoughts, as they traveled back and forth, between 
 old scenes and new. Gradually the swelling melody 
 took possession of her, and her soul went forth on its 
 waves, buoyant, bending with every curve of the 
 melody, which seemed to round and fill out her nature, 
 to fathom all the abysses of her soul. In places it 
 was as though little children were being rocked to 
 sleep ; again, the subdued tones seemed to shadow 
 forth the passing of souls, then gladder sounds brought 
 a vision of noble men and women in stately forests, 
 where life seemed strong, and wise, and beautiful. 
 
 How the violins struggled for human utterance, as 
 they led the great harmony, seeking, almost finding 
 words ! 
 
 Then on the bosom of soft, slow cadences she felt
 
 OF FISH Eli MAN S ISLAND. 131 
 
 herself being borne over the smooth waves of the sea, 
 and with gladness nearing home. But the melody 
 grew deeper, and suddenly saddened. Following, 
 drawn along irresistibly, she trembled with emotion. 
 Once the despair made her soul ache with dumb an 
 guish, and the hall was blurred before her eyes ; she 
 almost cried aloud, "Oh, stop, stop! I cannot bear 
 it!" 
 
 Turning, the melody took her as if out on a wild, 
 stormy sea ; she could hear the breakers moaning as 
 they tumbled on the reefs, she could feel the dark 
 ness. But clear, glad, calm trumpet calls brought 
 relief the tumult quieted, the waves were still; it 
 was as though all the sounds of the sea and the winds, 
 sweet and sad, were mingled and made into one 
 melody, and she was wafted again toward home, 
 which lay in the golden, hazy distance. Then the 
 music died away and left her with a great peace 
 but with a heartache, too, because it was more beauti 
 ful than the world. 
 
 While the people crowded out, she sat waiting for 
 Mr. Sargent. Her rested, roused soul shone in her 
 eyes as she looked up at the sound of an unfamiliar 
 voice near her which was saying :
 
 132 MARY CAMERON: A ROMANCE 
 
 " It was like the sea, wasn t it? " 
 
 "Mr. Loring ! " she exclaimed, rising to shake 
 hands with him. 
 
 John Loring, from Ids seav, in the balcony diagonally 
 opposite, had readily identified Mary. He had noticed 
 every slightest quiver of the sensitive frame, every 
 phase of changing emotion on the open face, as her 
 soul was being played upon by the inexorable, inex 
 plicable power of music. 
 
 "Mrs. Sargent told me yon were to visit her, so I 
 was n t at all surprised to see you here in her place, 
 though I should have recognized you anywhere," he 
 said. " You are waiting for somebody ; do be seated 
 again." 
 
 " Mr. Sargent is coming for me ; Mrs. Sargent 
 does n t trust me to find my way alone," she answered, 
 looking at him with a touch of merriment. 
 
 "May I wait with you?" He seated himself in 
 front without waiting for an answer. 
 
 "Why did the music make you think of the sea?" 
 she asked, after she had answered his courteous in 
 quiries about her father. Her glance was frank and 
 interested, and her red mouth had a happy trick of 
 smiling.
 
 OF FISHERMAN S ISLAND. 133 
 
 "You know, don t you, that people who have lived 
 by the sea, and loved it, have a two-stringed harp in 
 their souls, and the sea-string always vibrates when it 
 is touched, whether they will or not," he answered 
 simply. 
 
 "Hello, John, so you ve found Miss Cameron." 
 Mr. Sargent appeared in the doorway behind them. 
 
 "Yes, and I am glad to renew the acquaintance," 
 said Mr. Loring. "I suppose you are going out on 
 the next train, so I 11 walk across the Common with 
 you, for I want to talk over that C. B. & Q. stock." 
 
 Mary walked between the two men, walked so well 
 and looked so beautiful that half the people they met 
 turned for a second look at her, of which she was 
 wholly unconscious, for her eyes were drinking in the 
 beauty of the afternoon, the stir of the street life, 
 the green of the Public Garden, and the stateliness of 
 the towering buildings. 
 
 Mr. Loring excused himself at the Columbus Av 
 enue station, saying, " I have to go back down town." 
 
 " You will be around to see us Monday evening, I 
 hope," said Mr. Sargent, as Mr. Loring shook hands 
 with them botli unnecessarily, Mr. Sargent thought, 
 but then, John was inclined to be ceremonious.
 
 134 MARY CAMERON: A ROMANCE 
 
 Mrs. Sargent was always at home Mondays, in the 
 afternoons formally to the world, in the evenings 
 informally to a few friends, who dropped in to talk, 
 read, or have a rarebit. The Merricks, being next- 
 door neighbors and old friends, were wont to come 
 for the evenings, as was also John Loring. 
 
 " Hopelessly rich," men characterized Mr. Loring. 
 This was true with a margin of his material pos 
 sessions ; but his home life was meager, for he lived 
 in a great, old-fashioned house alone with his mother, 
 a woman of uudeviating ways, who seldom left home. 
 
 " You always wake me up here," he said once to 
 Mrs. Sargent, half apologizing for his frequent visits. 
 
 " Come whenever you feel like it," she answered; 
 "our latchstriug is always out to you." 
 
 She was a rare type of woman. The repose, the 
 self-reliance and command of herself, the receptive 
 spirit that showed itself so quickly to every person 
 she met, proved her a woman of power and resource ; 
 added to these gracious qualities were a keen intellect 
 and a warm heart. Mr. Sargent was a lawyer in 
 good practice, a widely-read, widely-traveled man, 
 with a keen sense of humor and a fund of anecdotes 
 which he related extremely well.
 
 OF FISHERMAN S ISLAND. 135 
 
 They talked about live subjects on those at-home 
 evenings. To-night the conversation turned on the 
 New England temperament. Mrs. Sargent was a 
 Southerner by birth, and she had never become quite 
 acclimated here. 
 
 " This New Englandism is a thing apart by itself," 
 she declared, "and Boston seems to me a kind of 
 national cold storage, which chills all its neighbor 
 hood. I don t go as far as some critics who say 
 Boston people are a lot of bloodless men and un- 
 maternal women, good pioneers, but icebergs in their 
 homes ; but I do think they would be more satisfactory 
 if they were warmer-mannered and more self-forget 
 ful." 
 
 " You must remember we have our traditions to 
 keep up," said Mrs. Merrick, she was a Colonial 
 Dame and a Daughter of the Revolution, "we 
 simply can t be effusive, it s such wretchedly bad 
 form." 
 
 Mr. Sargent took up the question. "Sentiment 
 aside, see what New England has accomplished ! The 
 fact is, the very motive-spring here is and always 
 has been energy." 
 
 "Yes, energy, passionate energy," put in Mr. Lor-
 
 136 MARY CAMERON: A ROMANCE 
 
 ing. " What else can you call the great force that 
 has moved this little handful of stout-hearted people 
 for a century, in the van of the nation? It has been 
 more than clear intellect and strong will which have 
 kept them at the head : it has been burning zeal, for 
 reform, and liberty, and beauty, too, zeal untrained, 
 unsatisfied, I admit, but alive with intense eagerness. 
 It s the fighting passion of men ready to be cut to 
 pieces for an idea, most of all, the passion for knowl 
 edge and insight into things, material and spiritual." 
 
 Mary, listening, observed Mr. Loriug closely. This 
 was a man who lived right in the midst of the mystery 
 of life. 
 
 He was tall, broad-shouldered, well-built, well-pro 
 portioned, a man much given to outdoor life one could 
 see at a glance, though traces of indoor occupation 
 showed in his face, in the dark hair thinning at the 
 temples, and the marks of care across the high 
 forehead. There were good-humored lines around his 
 mouth, which had fine, firm curves. His face, clean 
 shaven except for a black moustache, was almost 
 stern in repose, and showed strong determination, yet 
 with a distinct touch of gentleness. His eyes were 
 blue-gray, more gray than blue, and they darkened
 
 OF FISHERMAN S ISLAND. 137 
 
 almost to black when he was, as now, roused to deep 
 feeling. They were notable eyes from their expres 
 sion ; the meaning of the whole face seemed to deepen 
 in them almost to speech. 
 
 The good-humored lines around his mouth showed, 
 as he stopped for a moment, saying, Purpose, re 
 sponsibility, you know, are my hobbies." Then he 
 continued : " The most satisfied heart among us has 
 to keep on working. "We don t wear our hearts on 
 our sleeves, but it s a great mistake to think our lack 
 of expression means want of heart. If you only 
 probe beneath the surface, you will unmistakably 
 find the New England heart warm and deep in its per 
 sonal relations. 1 know whereof I speak, for I am to 
 the manner born." 
 
 " You are a New Englander of New Englanders, 
 and cherish your limitations," said Mrs. Sargent, 
 her frankness was one thing that attracted people to 
 her; "but here you can live so hopelessly near to 
 people without ever knowing what goes on in their 
 hearts. And you are so afraid of showing any feel 
 ing. It s in the air. Why, this very afternoon my 
 little five-year-old Katharine was telling me the story 
 of Moses and the bulrushes, which somebody had
 
 138 MART CAMERON: A ROMANCE 
 
 told her, and when she came to the part about their 
 finding the baby, she almost cried ; then she turned 
 away, laughed, and said, l It was awfully funny. " 
 
 " The fact is," said Mr. Sargent, " we all take our 
 selves too seriously, and we load ourselves down with 
 the woes of other people. Bear your own burdens 
 first ; after that, try to help others if you can." 
 
 " Yes," Mrs. Merrick admitted, "women are more 
 unreasonable in this respect than men." 
 
 " Look at the average women one meets in society, 
 at lectures, the theater, or on the streets ! " continued 
 Mr. Sargent; "their general expression of misery 
 and the lines that furrow their faces show that they 
 take even their pleasures sadly as the Frenchman 
 said. The} 7 study every art but the greatest of all, 
 the art of being happy. If a whole generation of 
 New England women could be born without con 
 sciences, it would be a blessing to their friends and 
 a boon to their good looks. As matters are now, 
 anything will serve for a really good, upright, self- 
 sacrificing New England woman to borrow responsi 
 bility upon. But Miss Cameron looks as though she 
 had sunk all her worries and responsibilities to the 
 bottom of the sea."
 
 OF FISHERMAN S ISLAND. 139 
 
 Mary colored, as their eyes were turned to her. 
 "Mine are different from yours," she said; "every 
 body here seems to have so much to do that I don t 
 see how they find time for it all." 
 
 " We don t, that s just it," said Mrs. Sargent. 
 
 "But we have responsibilities thrust upon us." 
 Miss Merrick had been silent before. " Here mamma 
 
 is trying to have me put on as a director in the 
 
 Convalescent Home, when I am simply staggering 
 under clubs and societies and teas and keeping up 
 generally." 
 
 Mrs. Merrick smiled complacently. " You are 
 equal to it all," she said. She liked to have Mr. 
 Loring know how capable this daughter of hers was. 
 " Come, we must begin reading before we grow any 
 more personal," she added ; " I have brought a new 
 book." And the rest of the evening was spent over 
 the essays of a recent author, whose touch of roman 
 ticism had been welcomed as a relief from too much 
 realism. 
 
 To Mary, listening rather than taking part, the 
 whole evening seemed like a living chapter out of a 
 book, the handsomely furnished library, the charm 
 ing gowns of the women, the sense of congenial en-
 
 140 MART CAMERON: A ROMANCE 
 
 joyment brought out by the conversation and the 
 reading. She was listening, however, with unmistak 
 able appreciation, as John Loring saw this tall 
 young woman, with those singularly splendid eyes 
 looking out from beneath waving brown hair. 
 
 When Mr. Loring rose to go, after the Merricks had 
 made a start, he said, " I believe Rob "NVeston is com 
 ing home on the Campagnia next week." His eyes 
 were on Mary as he spoke, and to his surprise he saw 
 a crimson color surge over her transparent face. 
 
 "Poor fellow," Mrs. Sargent was saying, "we 
 must all be good to him for dear Judge Western s 
 sake." 
 
 The Sargents had three children two sons, fourteen 
 and twelve years old, and little Katharine. " I fairly 
 have to keep the children away from Miss Cameron," 
 Mrs. Sargent told her husband ; " they tease her so 
 persistently for stories about ships and wrecks and 
 the sea." It was an orderly household, seeming to 
 run of itself ; but behind the scenes Mrs. Sargent s sure 
 hand was on the helm. Mary reveled and expanded 
 in the harmonious atmosphere, and she awoke grad 
 ually to a realization of the many opportunities which 
 lie within reach of privileged woman in this Boston
 
 OF FISHERMAN^ 1 ISLAND. 141 
 
 world. She heard good music, drove, met Mrs. Sar 
 gent s friends, went to afternoon teas, these she 
 enjoyed least of all, learned to play golf, and noth 
 ing escaped her alert attention. 
 
 Thus she was introduced to the life of a society 
 girl, and knew for the first time what it was to get up 
 in the morning with no imperative necessity for doing 
 one thing more than another. Social life, with the 
 new sense of leisure and unchecked enjoyment, could 
 hardly be without some directly stimulating effect 
 upon her. Yet her companionship with nature and 
 her hold on the great mysteries of life, her clear 
 sanity of mind, as they had guarded her against the 
 perils of seclusion, now kept her from being hurt by 
 the sudden glimpse of the world. 
 
 Mrs. Sargent s guest speedily became a topic of 
 discussion. She was never uninteresting ; Mrs. Sar 
 gent took care that she was suitably dressed, and she 
 was so wholly without affectation or conceit that she 
 won much admiration. Even Mrs. Merrick said ot 
 her, " She is fortunately possessed with the faculty of 
 manners and making friends." 
 
 Miss Merrick had welcomed Mary with a great show 
 of cordiality, and when Mary with scant civility in-
 
 142 MARY CAMERON: A ROMANCE 
 
 quired for Miss Kendall, Miss Merrick said she was 
 to be abroad a year, and added : " She must have seen 
 Mr. Weston often, because she writes so much about 
 him. You will enjoy meeting him again, I know." 
 She did not succeed in evoking any consciousness 
 from Mary.
 
 OF FISHERMAN S ISLAND. 143 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 "Living will teach you how to live better than preacher 
 or book." Goethe. 
 
 T^rylTH Mrs. Sargent, Mary saw Boston s art 
 V V collections and churches and visited its his 
 toric places old as we count age in this new world. 
 
 " How I should enjoy taking her to Europe ! " Mrs. 
 Sargent confided to John Loring. " It is positively 
 refreshing to come in contact with her enthusiasm, 
 and her good sense amounts almost to genius. Now, 
 some day, for the sake of teaching her to be properly 
 thankful, you may show her how the other half lives." 
 
 Accordingly, early one morning, Mary went to 
 Boston with Mr. Loring, who spent a part of each 
 day as social worker in connection with a well-known 
 social settlement at the South End. " Perhaps I 
 ought to have gone with them," Mrs. Sargent said to 
 her husband, as he was starting for town on a later 
 train; " but, no, it won t do any harm to give their, 
 a chance to get better acquainted. I wonder if John 
 realizes he has been here every other evening this 
 week, on some pretext or other? And he s taken her
 
 144 MARY CAMEEOX: A BOMANCE 
 
 twice to the Brae Burn links, and once to the Country 
 Club, for golf." 
 
 " Help them along, that s right ; I used to be glad 
 enough of a good turn," said Mr. Sargent. He re 
 membered that a woman, though she has been married 
 many years, likes a touch of gallantry. "But I 
 wonder you women don t oftener run aground when 
 it comes to steering the affairs of perverse young 
 people." 
 
 It was but a short distance from the Albany Station 
 in Boston to the settlement. Mary waited in the re 
 ception room, while Mr. Loriug looked after a few 
 matters of business ; then he rejoined her. First he 
 took her over the house, showing her the large living- 
 room, homelike with its pictures, its books, nigs, and 
 comfortable furniture, the class-rooms upstairs, the 
 boys workroom, and the gymnasium. " Some day 
 I shall come here to live." he said, " for a part of 
 each year at least, but never during my dear mother s 
 life." 
 
 " Have you steady nerves?" he asked, as he opened 
 the hall door. "We are going to make neighbor 
 hood visits, as the settlement people call them, and 
 we may encounter some trying scenes."
 
 OF FISHERMAN 11 8 ISLAND. 145 
 
 " I can hold on to my nerves, at least while I am 
 going through things," she answered, glancing up at 
 him with a frank smile. He stood nearly six feet tall, 
 and there was something reassuring about his broad 
 shoulders. 
 
 " That is a great virtue in woman, and I might have 
 known you had it," he replied, looking down at her 
 with a stir of admiration as she stood in the sun 
 light, waiting, with a happy, untroubled face, her hair 
 gleaming, her complexion exquisitely fresh, and her 
 air of unconsciousness. 
 
 Their first call was at a shabby little home, in a 
 tenement over a stable. By the couch of a patient- 
 faced girl ill with hip disease and so small Mary 
 could hardly believe she was ten years old stood a 
 table covered with a soiled red and white checked 
 cloth, and set with an uninviting breakfast of crackers, 
 a bit of butter, and a cu-p of tea. Will you wait 
 while I go and buy something more appetizing?" 
 asked Mr. Loring. He seemed a different man now ; 
 he was quicker, more animated, and his eyes held a 
 luminous look, for a great sympathy was his. In a 
 few moments he returned with a jug of milk, a loaf 
 of bread, and some eggs for the mother to cook.
 
 146 MARY CAMERON: A ROMANCE 
 
 " My man lias a job to-day, the first in three weeks," 
 the woman told him, her face beaming. 
 
 Mary, meanwhile, had made the acquaintance of 
 the little girl, who, with the trustfulness of childhood, 
 had put her thin hand in Mary s warm clasp. But 
 Mr. Loriug was the older friend, and when he came 
 back the child gave her hand to him, and a happy 
 smile stole over her face as he stroked back the light, 
 golden hair from her forehead. There seemed some 
 thing homelike to Mary about the action ; in a moment 
 she remembered it was her father s way. 
 
 At the next place they visited, an old mother was 
 caring for her son, a laboring man half sick with a 
 malarial, rheumatic trouble, half frenzied, too, with 
 grievances, real or fancied, against the rich, and 
 waxing so violent over the subject that Mr. Loring 
 deemed it best to leave after a few moments, his 
 errand accomplished. 
 
 " How do people live in such dingy, stuffy places ! " 
 exclaimed Mary, drawing a long breath, when they 
 were outside. 
 
 " That is an unsettled problem," Mr. Loring an 
 swered. "You can hardly call it living, it is only 
 existing. But we are working hard for better tene-
 
 OF FISHERMAN S ISLAND. 147 
 
 nient conditions. Our main hope to-day, though, is 
 for the children ; if we save them, we save the nation 
 to-morrow." 
 
 " Can you go to one other place," he asked after a 
 moment s pause, " even more wretched?" 
 
 " Yes ; but, oh, how all this misery makes one s 
 heart ache ! " She had been thinking about the little 
 girl incurably ill. " I should think helping this suffer 
 ing would make people forget themselves and their 
 own uuhappiness," she said wistfully. 
 
 "Do you know anything about unhappiness? " he 
 asked when he was by her side again. They were 
 making their way along a crowded street, filled with 
 fruit venders, swarthy-faced Jews, scurrying China 
 men, and urchins of every age. It was a directly 
 personal question, he realized. 
 
 " I could n t have lived as I have, without knowing," 
 she answered, thinking of the winter storms and 
 loneliness, of Jack s wasting illness, of the island 
 isolation but not of Rob Weston now. 
 
 Mr. Loring felt the sadness in her voice. "It s 
 the lot of us all, no matter where we are," he answered 
 gently ; " but sometimes our best happiness grows out 
 of our sorrow."
 
 148 MARY CAMERON: A ROMANCE 
 
 " Here we are ! " he exclaimed, as he led the way 
 into a dark little entry. " The man we are going to 
 see is a German Jew, and he has only been in this 
 country six months. He was n t well to begin with, 
 and work in a sweat shop has about finished him ; he 
 is dying of consumption now. It s up four flights, so 
 take plenty of time." 
 
 There were two small rooms, kitchen and bedroom, 
 in the garret tenement, stifling with the hot May sun. 
 In the kitchen three children, mere babies, were play 
 ing on the floor, and the worn little mother was bend 
 ing almost double over some rough sewing. She wel 
 comed Mr. Loring timidly, in broken English. 
 
 Within the bedroom where there was a strange, 
 expectant hush on a cot bed, his head propped with 
 pillows, lay an emaciated man, who turned his burn 
 ing eyes to Mr. Loriug like a hungry, hurt dog. He 
 tried to speak, but the words died in his throat. 
 
 Mr. Loring took an orange from a bag on the table, 
 cut it open, and began feeding it to the man, 
 awkwardly. 
 
 " Let me do that ! " Mary had her gloves off, and 
 was by the bedside with a plate and spoon which she 
 took from the table. She gave the man spoonful
 
 OF FISHERMAN S ISLAND. 149 
 
 after spoonful of the orange juice, as a woman would 
 feed a child ; then, putting one arm firmly around his 
 shoulders, she turned the pillows, and let the tired 
 head sink back again. 
 
 " Tank you ! tank you ! " the sick man gasped, his 
 deep-set eyes fixed on Mary. Then lie looked 
 toward Mr. Loriug, who was standing at the foot of 
 the bed. " Iz zee your wife? " he whispered. 
 
 Mr. Loring shook his head hurriedly. He could see 
 no trace of consciousness in Mary s face, except that 
 the color deserted it. 
 
 The sick man closed his eyes. " We would better 
 go now," said Mr. Loring softly, and Mary followed 
 him into the kitchen. He left a few instructions with 
 some money, and the woman broke into sobs: " De 
 doctor say he not last long." 
 
 "Have they any money?" asked Mary, when the 
 two were down in the entry -way again. 
 
 "Only what is given them," he answered abruptly, 
 " and this is but one of hundreds of cases." 
 
 " How can God let such things be ! " she exclaimed 
 passionately. 
 
 Mr. Loriug met her protest with silence, but his 
 heart smote him when they were out in the daylight
 
 150 MARY CAMERON: A ROMANCE 
 
 again, and he saw the anguish of pity on her face. A 
 swift recollection came to him : it was this pity, this 
 sympathy, of which he had dreamed. 
 
 Half to himself, half to the woman now at his side, 
 he said, " If each of us bore the burden of helping 
 those in need, whose lives touch our own, it would go 
 a long way toward solving the problem. The world is 
 waking up at last to the truth that humanity is greater 
 than temples and all the theories taught in temples." 
 Then he said, contritely, for her face was still pity 
 ingly set, " I ought n t to have brought you to this last 
 place though I had to come myself this morning." 
 
 "I am glad you did," she said, turning her shining 
 eyes to him. 
 
 " This is enough for to-day, I am sure; " he spoke 
 very gently. " Now I will take you to Mr. Sargent s 
 office to settle that long delayed business." 
 
 Mr. Sargent s law office, on School Street, was 
 musty with books and papers. Two long papers, 
 ready for signature, lay open on a table beside the 
 desk, and Mr. Sargent gave the brief explanation, 
 that Judge Weston had left his five shares of stock, 
 representing half of the island property, to Mary, and 
 had expressed the wish that the entire island might
 
 OF FISHERMAN S ISLAND. 151 
 
 come into her possession some day ; and thereupon the 
 other owners had agreed to make over their shares 
 to her, for they felt that future visits to the island 
 would mean nothing without Judge Western s presence. 
 Here was the letter, signed by them all. 
 
 " Is it mine? Am I to own the island?" Bewil 
 dered, Mary looked from one man to the other. 
 " Judge Weston and the owners have given it to me? 
 Then we need n t ever go away ! " 
 
 John Loring turned and stared out of the window. 
 Mr. Sargent drew up a chair for Mary, and busied 
 himself with pens and ink. u I could hardly help tell 
 ing her that John had bought those shares in from the 
 other owners," he confided to his wife afterwards. 
 
 " There, Miss Cameron, please sign your name here. 
 Read the paper first, though ; a woman should n t ever 
 sign anything without doing that. Now, John, you 
 witness the signature." 
 
 The ink was thick and black, and the two signatures 
 on each paper seemed to stare up at Mary. 
 
 " I shall have to ask you to take Miss Cameron to 
 the station," said Mr. Sargent, folding the long docu 
 ments, " for 1 have an immediate engagement. You 
 have just about time enough to get the 12.10 train."
 
 152 MARY CAMERON: A ROMANCE 
 
 Tremont Street was crowded as they went along 
 toward the Common. They did not talk much, even 
 when they emerged into the greater freedom of the 
 Common, but there was a restful sense of understand 
 ing between them. 
 
 " Do all Boston women carry bags? " Mary asked 
 once ; she had counted thirty in the crowd passing one 
 block. 
 
 As they walked under the tall elms toward Park 
 Square, John Loring was thinking, half-uncousciously, 
 of the school-mistress and that long walk which the 
 Autocrat wrote about. Mary, while noticing the old 
 men and little boys along the side paths, was puzzling 
 over something in the background of her thoughts. 
 
 Mr. Loring left her at the station, explaining that 
 he must go back to the settlement. On the way out to 
 Newton a light broke upon Mary s mind, and at lunch 
 eon that noon, after they had talked over the island 
 ownership and all it meant, Mary said to Mrs. Sargent, 
 " It was n t you who sent the papers and books to me 
 all the year, was it? " 
 
 " What makes you think not? " asked Mrs. Sargent, 
 fencing a little. 
 
 " Because the writing on the wrapping-paper was
 
 OF FISHERMAN S ISLAND. 153 
 
 the same as Mr. Loring s when he signed the deeds," 
 answered Mary, directly. " Did he send everything? " 
 
 " Yes," acknowledged Mrs. Sargent, cornered. She 
 expected Mary to pursue the subject, but Mary re 
 mained silent, an inscrutable expression in her eyes. 
 So Mrs. Sargent went on, after a moment: " I read 
 your letters to him, and he really had your thanks." 
 
 Another pause ; then she continued : There are 
 many interesting things about John Loring. His 
 father was a banker, a very wealthy man, and until 
 he died, about five years ago, John, who was the only 
 child, was with him in the Boston office. John keeps 
 the office now, and has a clerk there to look after his 
 property, but he gets out of business more and more, 
 and just gives himself up to social reform work. He 
 comes pretty near to being a saint or a martyr in 
 his relations with his mother, for she is an exacting, no 
 tional woman, not very well, and naturally devoted to 
 him. Years ago, let me see, we came to Newton 
 seven years ago, and it was about then, John had 
 some great disappointment over a girl who must have 
 played fast and loose with him, for as the story has 
 been told me, they were engaged a year, when she 
 suddenly married another man supposed to be
 
 154 MARY CAMERON: A ROMANCE 
 
 richer. People say John had almost worshipped her 
 though they always say such things. But evidently 
 the disappointment did n t turn him into a misanthrope 
 or a woman hater ; he simply grows more and more 
 devoted to his social work, until lam sometimes afraid 
 he will become a hopeless fanatic. He spoke about 
 his past once, only once, to Mr. Sargent when they 
 were off together somewhere, of course Mr. Sargent 
 told me, and said he never should marry. He s 
 a young man yet, only thirty-three, and it s dreary 
 for him, I know, although he never says a word 
 about it or makes any complaint. But many a 
 man envies him, and many a girl would like to be 
 Mrs. John Loring." 
 
 "That s a long chapter," she concluded, "and it 
 sounds like gossip." Perhaps it was unnecessary, 
 but she had felt she ought to tell this to Mary. " He 
 is always doing helpful things, and last summer, when 
 you told us what you had been reading, and I spoke 
 of sending you some books, he remembered it and 
 sent them himself ; and when I showed him your first 
 letter, he simply said he would rather the books 
 seemed to come from me ; so I lent myself to the 
 harmless deception. It is a small matter, and I
 
 OF FISHERMAN S ISLAND. 155 
 
 wouldn t speak about it to him, if I were you," said 
 Mrs. Sargent, as she rose from the table. 
 
 Mary was looking down at little Katharine, who 
 had left her place and come to Mary s side ; it was 
 comforting to have the child near her. 
 
 There was a debate on the woman suffrage question 
 that evening at the Hunnewell Clubhouse. " Even 
 if we have to give up the Dog Show, we must let Miss 
 Cameron have a taste of the suffrage, or her Boston 
 experiences will not be complete," Mrs. Sargent in 
 sisted when her husband demurred, at dinner, to 
 attending the meeting. 
 
 Carriageful after carriageful of people was deposited 
 at the entrance to the handsome colonial building, 
 for the suffrage question continues to be a live issue. 
 
 A gentle-faced, sweet-voiced woman was the first 
 speaker, and she pleaded warmly for the suffrage 
 right. Then the opposing side was taken by a thin- 
 voiced- inadequately equipped man, who scored a 
 few points and said effusive things about women ; 
 "they rule us now, and it s too bad to accumulate 
 too much power on one side," was his final argument. 
 Next a frothy, aggressive-mannered young woman 
 delivered a fierce tirade about the success of woman s
 
 156 MART CAMERON: A EOMANCE 
 
 work to-day, and the therefore-to-be-claimed success 
 of the suffrage privilege if exerted by them. Last 
 of all, a fine-faced woman, full of years and dignity, 
 spoke briefly, making a final point that " one woman, 
 simply by being her own womanly self, has more 
 influence for good and more power for reform than 
 ten women clamoring for the ballot." 
 
 Mr. Loring joined the Sargent s party, as the audi 
 ence broke up into groups after the discussion. " How 
 do you feel on the subject?" He spoke to Mary. 
 
 - I suppose the suffrage is sure to come, sometime, 
 but I don t want it for myself," she answered in her 
 straightforward way. " I don t know much about it, 
 though of course I have read the papers ; it seems to 
 me that women ought to attend to what concerns them 
 most, and I don t believe voting is the most important 
 thing." 
 
 " I think you are right. If women would turn their 
 attention to what lies in their power, near them just 
 as I was saying this morning that would bring the 
 social millennium sooner than anything else." 
 
 "Why do people here have so many societies and 
 clubs and lectures?" She asked the question in all 
 sincerity ; it had been a puzzle and surprise to her.
 
 OF FISHERMAN S ISLAND. 157 
 
 "The fact is," he answered, with the smile that 
 made his face so winning, " men and women in this 
 modern Athens the women perhaps more than the 
 men are warmly interested in progress and reforms. 
 There s a good and an unfortunate side to it ; and 
 there are so many organizations of the kind that they 
 might well be classed under a general head of Soci 
 eties for Putting Things to Rights. It is the tend 
 ency of the times." 
 
 "But why not leave off talking so much, and just 
 live ? " she asked, a touch of merriment in her brown eyes. 
 
 "That is rank heresy ! " he replied, with an answer 
 ing flash of fun. " You will be scut forth as a Philis 
 tine if you venture such comments. How would you 
 have people live ? " 
 
 "Oh, out of doors more, with the birds and the 
 flowers," she answered. 
 
 " Most girls would n t find that very exciting," he 
 said, looking at her attentively. 
 
 "It doesn t always satisfy mo," she answered 
 frankly, "yet I ve felt stifled here sometimes, it s so 
 so civilized ! " 
 
 She looked more as though she belonged outdoors 
 than in, as she stood there with that indefinable
 
 158 MARY CAMERON: A ROMANCE 
 
 outdoor atmosphere, tall, firm-figured, in her simple 
 dark blue street suit and white silk sLirt waist, her 
 beautiful hair shining under the blue straw hat. un- 
 trimmed save for some ribbon and quills ; she wore 
 her clothes well, her most severe critic had to admit 
 that. 
 
 She was woman enough to know that Mr. Loring 
 was attracted toward her. His manner had not lost 
 the animation of the morning, and his eyes were full 
 of kindly interest. Mary hardly allowed herself to 
 meet them ; Mrs. Sargent s story had been constantly 
 in her mind, and there was a restraint about her man 
 ner which had not existed that morning, the sense 
 of content in his presence was broken in upon by a 
 growing embarrassment. She was relieved when Mrs. 
 Merrick and her daughter came toward them. 
 
 After a few casual remarks, Miss Merrick said to 
 Mary, " Did you know Mr. Weston arrived in New 
 York yesterday? He called this afternoon." 
 
 The unexpected mention of Rob Weston brought 
 an added constraint to Mary, and meeting Mr. Lor- 
 ing s eyes just then, she colored deeply, wave after 
 wave flushing her face. But the Merricks did not 
 notice her embarrassment, for at that moment Mr,
 
 OF FISHERMAN S ISLAND. 159 
 
 and Mrs. Sargent, saying good-nigbt to the people 
 they had been talking with, turned at the mention of 
 Rob s name. 
 
 "He has really arrived, has he?" asked Mr. Sar 
 gent. " I wonder he did n t come around to my office 
 to-day." 
 
 " I must look him up early to-morrow," said Mr. 
 Loring in a steady voice, his eyes still on Mary. 
 
 "It s insufferably warm here," Mrs. Sargent inter 
 rupted, noticing Mary s flushed face, " and as we 
 have talked the suffrage subject threadbare again, we 
 may as well go home." 
 
 Won t you ride home with us, John ? " she asked ; 
 he had walked to the door with them. 
 
 Mr. Loring shook hands with Mary after he had 
 declined Mrs. Sargent s invitation. "Is it day after 
 to-morrow that you start for home?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " I am sorry," was all he said ; but he looked at 
 her with such strange, bewildering intensity that 
 the color did not leave her face until they reached 
 home, nor the sense of his pressure on her hand. 
 
 That night John Loring, turning back, as was his 
 wont, to those days which, though seven years past
 
 160 MARY CAMERON: A ROMANCE 
 
 now, had never seemed more remote than yesterday, 
 was startled to find in the place of the old ideal a 
 vision of clear, shining eyes, a recollection of sweet 
 voice and compassionate, womanly presence. Hour 
 after hour he paced the floor, while the gradual recon 
 ciliation went on ; then, like the sane man he was, he 
 accepted the fact, nay, he welcomed it, and his hope 
 went toward it. 
 
 But why had the mention of Rob Weston so visibly 
 affected her, twice? He had told her he was sorry she 
 was going home, but in his heart he was glad, now that 
 Rob had come. 
 
 And that night Mar} 7 , wide-eyed, wakeful, went 
 over the manifold events of the day the morning 
 sights of misery and sharp anguish, her new owner 
 ship of the island, the lunch-time talk with Mrs. Sar 
 gent, the evening occurrences. She remembered that 
 Rob Weston had come home ; but what did it mean 
 that in place of thinking about him she was wondering 
 over the meaning of Mr. Loring s look? Then the 
 merciless story of his life came back again, and with 
 all the strength born of past overcoming, she reso 
 lutely laid her hand on this ecstatic, vital thing which 
 was springing up in her soul.
 
 OF FISHERMAN S ISLAND. 161 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 u Love is not love 
 
 Which alters when it alteration finds, 
 Or bends with the remover to remove." 
 
 Shakespeare. 
 
 "I grieve not with the moaning wind, 
 As if a loss befell ; 
 Before me, even as behind, 
 God is, and all is well." 
 
 John G. Whittier. 
 
 MARY did not open the book, but let it fall on 
 her knees, while her eyes wandered to the 
 library window, where, looking down across the slop 
 ing lawn, she could see the sunshine falling on the 
 rich clumps of spring flowers and, beyond, the sleep 
 ing hills. The fragrant air came in through the open 
 window, and a golden oriole was calling with liquid 
 note from the larch tree. The air indoors seemed 
 heavy, so after a moment she went out on the broad 
 veranda. She had dressed early for dinner and was 
 waiting. 
 
 Two letters had lain by her place at breakfast that 
 morning. One, several days old before its start, was 
 from Aunt Hetty, who had written, Don t let city
 
 162 MART CAMEEON: A ROMANCE 
 
 notions turn your head. Your father says, stay till 
 you are ready to come home ; he is getting along all 
 right, though I expect he misses you a sight. I sup 
 pose the summer visitors will be as thick as potato 
 bugs along the shore when you get home." The other 
 was a brief note from Rob "Weston, saying he espe 
 cially wanted to see her and would call about five 
 o clock. 
 
 Mary seated herself in a corner of the veranda, 
 partly sheltered by climbing vines ; it would be easier 
 to see Rob out of doors, after all. 
 
 Coming up the driveway in a cab, Rob saw her, 
 and walked around the house to her unannounced 
 the same impetuous, self-confident Rob, his face 
 browned by the sea voyage, his blue eyes touched 
 with grief for his uncle. There was evidently a strong 
 nervous tension about him, and his greeting was 
 constrained. 
 
 " Miss Merrick tells me you are going home to 
 morrow," he said, as he sat down opposite Mary on 
 the low bench which bordered the veranda. How 
 beautiful she was in that white India-stuff gown with 
 its bit of lace it was an old-fashioned gown, re 
 modeled from one that had been her mother s.
 
 OF FISHERMAN S ISLAND. 163 
 
 After a few restless remarks about her visit and 
 his voyage, he began twisting his hat nervously in his 
 hands. 
 
 " Why did n t you answer my last letter? " 
 
 " I hardly thought you cared to hear from me." 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 " Because you were so long about writing." 
 
 " But you see, I was working like a dog, and there 
 is n t much a fellow can write about, and I did n t 
 know definitely about coming home." 
 
 He stopped. She said nothing, but looked away. 
 He forgot for the moment certain passages of flirta 
 tion with Miss Kendall. 
 
 " And I could n t ask you to marry me, as I can 
 now." 
 
 She was still silent, but an inward protest rose 
 unfalteringly. 
 
 "Didn t you know last summer that I cared for 
 you?" 
 
 " Sometimes I thought perhaps you did." 
 
 " Then why are you so different now? " 
 
 "Because I don t know. It was a long, hard 
 winter, and things seem different." 
 
 He grew more eager as she appeared to elude him ;
 
 164 MARY CAMERON: A ROMANCE 
 
 moving nearer, he bent forward and tried to take her 
 hand. But she withdrew hers, and the pleading in his 
 eyes was lost upon her, for her own were downcast. 
 
 Rob rose and walked restlessly back and forth, 
 cursing his folly for waiting, and recalling rapidly 
 those days last summer. 
 
 " Why did you ask me if I had ever been con 
 firmed?" 
 
 "Because I thought I cared for you; because" 
 the womanhood in her rose, and truth compelled her 
 "I did care in an imaginative, unreal way, and I 
 thought then that coining into the church, in itself, was 
 the gateway to heaven ; and, oh, it was childish, but I 
 thought I should feel better about your going so far 
 away if T knew I should see you again." Her face 
 had grown very pale and gentle ; she seemed to be 
 speaking of some one other than herself. 
 
 The man s better nature was touched, and he saw, 
 as by a revelation, the change which had been wrought 
 in less than a year, transforming the immature girl 
 into a woman infinitely more attractive. " That is 
 enough to make a man try to win heaven," he said 
 softly, seating himself opposite her again. Then 
 after a moment, " There must have been something
 
 OF FISHERMAN S ISLAND. 165 
 
 real in your feeling. Why can t you learn to care for 
 me again ? " 
 
 No yielding in her face, only a growing, infinite pity. 
 
 "Miss Mary," he said hotly, roused again, "if 
 you won t marry me, how can I believe in goodness, or 
 heaven, or anything else? You will kill my faith." 
 
 "Mr. Weston, this is unworthy of you; it isn t 
 manly." She drew herself up in her chair, her dark 
 eyes showing darker by contrast with her white face. 
 " When a woman confesses to you that her feeling for 
 you was only imaginary, only a girl s fancy, built on 
 trifles, have n t you the manhood to accept it? " 
 
 "They were not trifles; I loved you all the time," 
 he said bitterly, " fool that I was not to tell her so 
 then," he added to himself. 
 
 His eyes traveled from her to the distant hills. 
 " Think how Uncle Levi would have liked to have us 
 care for each other," lie said, looking at her again. He 
 saw the sudden weakening at the corners of the firm 
 mouth, and his hope awoke. But Mary was thinking 
 of Judge Weston s words, " Be true to yourself." 
 
 " Is there any reason why you can t try to care for 
 me?" he asked, with a desperate determination to 
 have a definite answer.
 
 166 MARY CAMERON: A ROMANCE 
 
 There was one quick leap of her heart, which Mary 
 thrust back as she answered " No." 
 
 "Then will you try? Let me ask you again this 
 summer. Give me this chance," lie pleaded. 
 
 " My answer will be just the same then," she 
 replied wearily. " I am sure of this, Mr. Weston." 
 She turned her beautiful, steady eyes full on him now ; 
 and he, looking into them, saw that she spoke the 
 truth, lint he clung to the hope. 
 
 "At least give me the chance," he insisted; "it 
 will help me to be a better man. Promise me you 
 will try." 
 
 She hesitated. It was weak not to hold to her 
 " no." But it might help him, and a woman s heart 
 is always tender toward a man who has confessed his 
 love for her. 
 
 " I promise," she said, and with that he had to go 
 content. 
 
 About nine o clock that evening Mary was upstairs, 
 while Mrs. Sargent s maid helped pack her trunk for 
 the morrow s start, when Mr. Loriug called. He asked 
 first for Mrs. Sargent, and he found her in the library. 
 She saw that he had something especial to say to her, 
 so she chatted on until he was ready. His face
 
 OF FISHEEMAN- S ISLAND. 167 
 
 was noticeably pale, his absorption unusual. After 
 a few moments he had heard nothing of what Mrs. 
 Sargent said he began : 
 
 " You know the history of my life an unfortunate 
 only child, having too much kindness and too much 
 restriction, growing up self-willed, and then blindly 
 starving my life because I could n t have what I 
 wanted? I have waked up at last I have had to. 
 Do you know why? " 
 
 " Yes," she answered simply. 
 
 " Is it would you advise me to try now?" 
 
 " Oh, John ! " she exclaimed, reaching out her hand 
 in sympathy, " I am afraid it s too late. Jf you had 
 only asked me yesterday ! There is something be 
 tween her and Rob Weston, for he was here this after 
 noon, and just as he was going, I was down in the 
 library and they were on the veranda, and I could n t 
 help hearing her promise him something." 
 
 Mrs. Sargent was startled by the look of anguish 
 in the man s eyes. For a moment he kept her kind, 
 steadying hand, then rising aad looking down into the 
 fire before which they had both been seated it was 
 a raw, chilly evening he said, in a voice full of sup 
 pressed emotion :
 
 168 MART CAMERON: A ROMANCE 
 
 " I should like to see her to say good-by." 
 
 Mary was reluctant to go down, but Mrs. Sargent 
 urged it, saying, " Remember how much he has done 
 for you." So she went, and Mrs. Sargent stayed be 
 hind, looking out from the hall window into the dark 
 overhanging night, murmuring, "Poor John! poor 
 man ! " 
 
 Downstairs Mary found him standing by the fireside 
 in the library it was just where Mrs. Sargent had 
 left him. He looked up and came forward as Mary 
 entered the room. 
 
 The graceful, clinging white gown made her look 
 taller, more womanly, than ever. Her hair, disar 
 ranged with the work of packing, was loosened around 
 her face, her brown eyes shone out like stars, and 
 there was a tremulous smile on the sweet red lips. 
 
 "I will keep you only a moment," he said, "be 
 cause it is growing late and you ought to be resting 
 for your journey." His eyes were drinking in every 
 detail of her face. 
 
 " Have you heard from the German Jew to-day?" 
 she asked, lifting her eyes. 
 
 " I was there this morning ; he died at noon." 
 
 "Is there anything I could do send them a little
 
 OF FISHERMAN S ISLAND. 169 
 
 money or anything? I have some left that was given 
 me to spend." 
 
 " I m afraid not," he answered, a gleam of pleas 
 ure lighting his face and his eyes shining with that 
 bewildering look, under which her own eyes fell again. 
 
 With a visible effort she broke the impending si 
 lence. "Mrs. Sargent told me, or rather, I found 
 out from your handwriting on the deeds, that it was 
 you who sent all those books to me, and I want to 
 thank you for them." 
 
 " It was a very slight thing to do," he answered, 
 putting aside her thanks. 
 
 " Slight to you, probably, but it meant a great deal 
 to me in those long winter days." 
 
 "I shall be glad to send more"; he could surely 
 let himself do this. 
 
 They had both remained standing. 
 
 " Why, oh, why, did he come to torture me again?" 
 Mary was saying to herself. 
 
 Not daring to trust himself longer, he took her 
 hand in his for one mute moment, looked strainingly 
 at the downcast face, and without saying good-by, 
 went out into the night. 
 
 Mary was standing by the dressing table, absently
 
 170 MARY CAMERON: A ROMANCE 
 
 looking down at the candles, when Mrs. Sargent en 
 tered in response to Mary s low " Come in" after her 
 knock. She wanted to have a farewell talk with her 
 guest. 
 
 " I am sorry you feel that you can t stay longer, 
 but you must surely come to us for a good visit next 
 winter. We shall probably see you before then, 
 though, for Mr. Sargent has decided to buy a yacht, 
 and we shall go cruising along the Maine coast this 
 summer." 
 
 Mary s face was still preoccupied ; she had seated 
 herself opposite Mrs. Sargent, but was only half lis 
 tening. 
 
 With a natural curiosity, Mrs. Sargent was speculat 
 ing on the exact relation between Mary and Rob. She 
 ventured : 
 
 " I wish you might marry and live near Boston 
 some day. You surely can t think of staying on that 
 island always." 
 
 " How is a woman to know when she loves a man 
 enough to marry him?" came the unexpected question. 
 " What is love, anyway? " 
 
 "Oh, it s a kind of inward unaccountability and 
 an outward all-overness, as a brother of mine used
 
 OF FISHERMAN^S ISLAND. 171 
 
 to say. It isn t easy to define, just as is true of all 
 high and noble things." 
 
 " She stopped, then, seeing the trouble in the girl s 
 face, she went on : 
 
 "Marriage increases one s enjoyment and apprecia 
 tion, it doubles all there was before, if the love is true 
 and deep. But don t ever marry anybody you can 
 live without, anybody whose mere presence does n t 
 satisfy your n?art, whether he brings you peace or 
 not, whether he is a scamp or a reprobate or an arch 
 angel ! Love does n t necessarily bring peace. That 
 greatest lover of all who ever came into the world 
 said he came not to bring peace but a sword. If you 
 want peace, go into a convent. Love brings satisfac 
 tion, but never entire peace." 
 
 Mary s face was full of unrest ; she was thinking, 
 "If only I could tell it all to her," but the words 
 would not come. 
 
 Mrs. Sargent yearned to help her ; there was some 
 thing she had not fathomed. " Perhaps separation is 
 the best test of love," she said, rising, and tenderly 
 putting her hand in passing on the bright hair. 
 " Wait a moment, I am going to read somethiug to 
 you." She vanished and reappeared in a moment,
 
 172 MARY CAMERON: A ROMANCE 
 
 settling herself with soft rustlings of her silk bed 
 room gown in a large chair near the dressing table. 
 "A happy, happy woman!" thought Mary, looking 
 at the fair-faced woman as she began to read, first 
 saying, " This is something I came across the other 
 day in the North American Review, and it refers to 
 that natural looking forward to marriage which every 
 true-natured woman ought to feel." 
 
 " If this eagerness for marriage arose from desire 
 for sympathy, and if constant efforts were made to 
 render their minds more intelligent and graceful, that 
 they may be able to keep some rare love in a husband, 
 and that they may train, in all beauteous mode, his 
 children, we should not quarrel with them. There are 
 men possessing high minds and souls of delicate sen 
 sibility, hungering to find in woman what a fate that 
 they do not, dare not doubt, tells them is in her; are 
 hungering to form some real marriage ; and they roam 
 the world s garden, where the flowers are arranged in 
 choicest order, saying in sad disappointment, They 
 do not answer us, speak to us, are no companions, 
 have so little love, are not true women. 
 
 " Dear, there are men in the world like that," said 
 Mrs. Sargent, holding Mary for a moment in a good 
 night embrace, " and I hope you will know it some day,"
 
 OF FISHERMAN S ISLAND. 173 
 
 After Mrs. Sargent went, Mary sat for a long time 
 with her head upon her folded arras. Eleven chiming 
 from the great hall clock reminded her that she would 
 be starting in less than nine hours now. She was 
 utterly glad to be going home, and the only desire 
 that possessed her was to be alone again. 
 
 The east wind moaned at the window. Mary fin 
 ished her packing, put out the candles, and went to 
 bed in that state of dumb submission which knows, 
 though it cannot feel, the reality of the Everlasting 
 Arms underneath all events.
 
 174 MARY CAMEfiON: A ROMANCE 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 14 Ay, so the gods send us 
 The darkening cloud, that we the radiant bow 
 In twice triumphant brightness shall behold ! " 
 
 Brunhild. 
 
 DONALD CAMERON was at home when Mary 
 arrived, her Uncle Donald, back from his 
 South American voyages. His old-fashioned face, 
 lined with the furrows worn by a life of exposure, 
 his figure bent with rheumatism and hard work, past 
 his three score years, he was about ready to come 
 to anchor for the rest of his life. 
 
 "I ll make one more trip, then I m goin to turn 
 the Flying Kestrel over to my first mate," he an 
 nounced the evening after Mary s arrival, when they 
 all came together for a family conference. He " set 
 great store by Mary," as he said, and had waited her 
 return to announce his news. " The shippin business 
 ain t what it used to be," he went on sententiously, 
 * for steamboats an railroads have cut freights down 
 to almost nothin . I ve saved bout enough, with 
 what I 11 have comin in from the schooner, to keep
 
 OF FISHERMAN S ISLAND. 175 
 
 me an Hetty the rest of our lives. Jack, he d better 
 stick to boat buildin ." 
 
 It had never been his plan to have Jack follow the 
 sea. " No, goiu to sea s the last thing I d let a boy 
 o mine do ; there ain t nothin I know of that 11 send 
 him straight to perdition any quicker. It s a dog s 
 life, too, nowadays." He was a bluff, outspoken man, 
 uneasy on land, like all seafarers, and especially ill- 
 content on Fisherman s Island. 
 
 "If I m goin to be dry-docked the rest o my 
 life, Hetty, it s got to be somewheres else n this 
 place." He always came home from sea with a bold 
 front, and this time he kept it up. " Why, the first 
 thing I d know, I d be walkin round this tarnation 
 place, an go straight off into the water. You d have 
 me an old barnacl d wreck on your hands in no time." 
 
 So the news that the island property had come to 
 Mary, while it kindled afresh their affection and re 
 spect for Judge Weston, served but to increase the 
 perplexities of the two families. 
 
 " If Donald won t stay, I can t go an leave Mary 
 an her father here all alone," Aunt Hetty reiterated 
 helplessly, divided against herself. 
 
 "Well, well, I can settle things better after I ve
 
 176 MARY CAMERON: A ROMANCE 
 
 slep over "em," said Captain Cameron ; " let s drop 
 it now." He did not want Mary s first evening at 
 home spoiled by a long discussion with Aunt Hetty. 
 
 " Mebbe we d better shut the houses up an all go 
 over to the main to live, I guess," she said to Mary 
 one day, rehearsing the situation for the hundredth 
 time. " Your father seemed to me kinder failin like 
 last winter, an I m thiukin it d be pretty tough 
 gettin through another winter here." 
 
 "But what would father and I have to live on?" 
 asked Mary. 
 
 "I ll take care of you, Mary," put in Jack, "just 
 as long as I can build boats." 
 
 "Jack s very partial to Mary. If they wasn t 
 cousins, I expect they d like each other well enough 
 to fix it up between em," Aunt Hetty confided to her 
 husband. She occasionally surprised herself, and him, 
 too, by talking things over confidentially with him. 
 In her heart, she was dryly thankful he was going to 
 give up the sea ; but nothing would have induced her 
 to tell him so. 
 
 Their difficulties were settled, however, speedily, 
 and in a manner they little anticipated. 
 
 Eighteen years old when he ran away from home,
 
 OF FISHERMAN S ISLAND. 177 
 
 Edwin Cameron Mary s brother had not found 
 making his way in the world an easy path. He had 
 shipped on a fishing schooner, as his father rightly 
 conjectured ; but there were forty or more of these 
 vessels bound from Boothbay for the Banks at that 
 time, and when Captain Cameron came out from the 
 rage which drove his son away, these vessels had been 
 twenty-four hours at sea. From the George s Banks to 
 Portland, then on an English steamship to Liverpool, 
 had been Edwin Cameron s course. The wretched ill- 
 treatment he experienced at sea, latterly a stirring 
 fascination about the great city, kept him in Liver 
 pool. Sore with a sullen sense of grievance he had 
 vowed never to return until he was a man independ 
 ent of his father. Working first around the great 
 Liverpool docks, obliged to live anywhere, cut off 
 from home ties and home tenderness, his indomitable 
 perseverance and inherent integrity alone enabled him 
 to rise, in spite of circumstances. At the end of ten 
 years he reached a breathing place ; next in line of 
 promotion to junior member in the large shipping firm 
 of Laking, Hatton & Vincent, he was now in a posi 
 tion of comparative ease, and he resolved to go home. 
 He had intended writing, years ago, after his anger
 
 178 MARY CAMERON: A ROMANCE 
 
 wore away ; but this he kept putting off, telling him 
 self he would soon go in person. At last the impulse 
 grew unconquerable, and sailing from Liverpool, he 
 arrived in New York the last of June, and quickly 
 made his way to Boothbay. 
 
 No one in his native town recognized him. 
 "There s Donald Cameron goin by now," the old 
 shopkeeper said, pointing out of the window with his 
 forefinger as he finished his account, in which the for 
 eign-looking man had appeared greatly interested, of 
 the Camerons removal to Fisherman s Island. The 
 visitor hastily left the shop, and the old man, watching 
 the meeting outside, was mystified by the surprise on 
 Donald Cameron s face, and the evident constraint of 
 the stranger. 
 
 Donald Cameron, sailing back to the island in the 
 Kady that afternoon, he had been off all day house 
 hunting, brought a passenger, eager-eyed and nervous. 
 
 " Son, I knew you would come home some day," 
 said the old father, as after the solemn, thankful 
 pause which followed their meeting, he stood with one 
 hand on the shoulder of the tall, resolute- faced man ; 
 " an I knew you by your boy s look, the first minute." 
 
 But when the father would have humbled himself
 
 OF FISHERMAN S ISLAND. 179 
 
 for liis part in that tragedy of the past, the son would 
 not allow it. "The past is past, father, let us say 
 no more about it," he protested, after his explanation 
 of the years that lay between ; and the father saw 
 that the subject was too painful for many words. 
 
 It happened often during those next days, as he 
 saw his son in and around the house, a broad-shoul 
 dered, full-grown man now, prop to his old age and 
 protector for Mary, that the father wiped furtive tears 
 from his eyes ; the strain of so much happiness made 
 him tremulous. 
 
 Mary, eleven years old at the time her brother went 
 away, had slight memory of him. " So you are really 
 my brother ? " she often repeated ; and her quaint 
 gravity over him was very winning to the man, who, 
 remembering his mother far better than the little girl, 
 found in his newly acquired sister so great a likeness 
 to the mother whose death was the one grief now 
 which time had not canceled that he could hardly do 
 enough for her. As a sister and as a woman she 
 answered his expectation. " Gad! " he said to him 
 self, some day I 11 have her come and keep house 
 for me, but not in that beastly, smoky Liverpool." 
 
 He could be absent only a month, which left little
 
 180 MARY CAMERON: A ROMANCE 
 
 more than a week to arrange for the comfort of his 
 father and Mary. Accustomed as he was to rapid 
 action and quick decision, two visits to Boothbay 
 sufficed for the purchase of a large house, capable of 
 adaptation to two families. "I ve set some men at 
 work to get the house into good shape," he said, tell 
 ing them of his purchase, " so it will be quite ready 
 for you early in the fall." 
 
 On the morning before he left, he put a checkbook 
 into his father s hands. " Here is something for you 
 to draw on freely, for you and Mary, in the Boothbay 
 Bank ; draw to any extent, there 11 be more to come." 
 
 The old man looked steadfastly into the honest blue 
 eyes, so like his own, when he bade his sou good-by. 
 "I ve sailed from New York, from Philedelphy, an 
 Baltimore, an New Orleans, an Liverpool, an Barce- 
 lony, an almost every other port on the globe ; I ve 
 never amounted to anythin , an I m glad I didn t 
 either. Yet I ve had my compensations. The Lord s 
 mercy has been sure an unfailin . He brings us all 
 home to the truth, sooner or later. His givin you 
 back to me is the one thing I ve prayed for most. 
 Now I m ready to go home, home to your mother, 
 whose heart I nigh to broke. God bless you, God
 
 OF FISHERMAN S ISLAND. 181 
 
 bless you, my boy, my boy ! " said the white-haired 
 man, putting his hands in benediction upon the head 
 bowed to receive it. 
 
 " You 11 welcome me home many a time yet," said 
 the son, when he could control his choking voice. 
 But this was not to be. 
 
 When Edwin started for New York, Donald Cam 
 eron went as far as Boston to take command, for the 
 last time, of the Flying Kestrel, and the two families 
 settled down to spending the remainder of the sum 
 mer on the island, though Jack was often in Booth- 
 bay, superintending the building of a boat shop, to 
 have ready in the autumn. 
 
 Aunt Hetty apparently had a new lease of life ; 
 there was a manifest struggle going on within her, 
 which Mary, gifted with the saving grace of humor, 
 watched with keen interest. Either her loneliness 
 during Mary s absence, her husband s decision to 
 settle down at home, or their bettered circumstances 
 perhaps all three combined was responsible for 
 Aunt Hetty s growing anxiety to be conciliatory, 
 which so visibly warred against her critical self-right 
 eous tendency, her stone of stumbling and rock of 
 offense. In the midst of a sharp sentence she would
 
 182 MARY CAMEltON: A ItOMANCE 
 
 stop suddenly and shut her mouth with a snap. " I 
 declare for it," she broke out one day, attempting to 
 laugh at herself, " I shall bite my tongue off, the first 
 thing I know." 
 
 " I s pose you did n t get a beau while you s gone," 
 Aunt Hetty ventured one dull afternoon, they had 
 ample time now to talk over Mary s visit. "Seems 
 to me you re gettin to be somethin of an old maid. 
 But then, mebbe there ll be chances for you over .to 
 Boothbay next winter." 
 
 Mary bent lower over her sewing, and Aunt Hetty 
 went on with the monologue. 
 
 " After all, though, if a woman s fairly well off, 
 an comfortable, I say she d better not get married. 
 She gives herself up too much. She s got a master 
 then, an she s got to do what he wants her to ; mebbe 
 he don t say it in so many words, but there s looks 
 that she sees, if nobody else don t. An when she 
 wants to go away, it s No, don t go ; I shall be lone 
 some ! I tell you, when a woman s married, she s 
 got a master, an she ain t the same as she was before. 
 But land sakes ! men are masterful, anyway. I sup 
 pose the Lord made em so. Just see how your 
 brother went to work an bought that house, an just
 
 OF FISHERMAN S ISLAND. 183 
 
 see how set your uncle was not to stay here next 
 winter." Secretly, Aunt Hetty liked her husband all 
 the better for his insistence. 
 
 Back from the busy town life with its spirit of the 
 present, to the simple life of nature, touched with the 
 mysterious sense of the to-be, Mary had taken up 
 the humble routine of her daily cares with that stead 
 fast adjustment which is the heritage of a well- 
 balanced mind. The unusual events in the home life 
 immediately after her return helped her through the 
 transition, and gave her nature a chance to react from 
 the strain of those last days in Newton. 
 
 She wandered over the island like a bird, examin 
 ing her flowers, watching the fishhawks, drinking in 
 the glory of dawns and sunsets, and of the blue sea. 
 How she had learned to love the barren little island ! 
 Yet how pitiably limited life was here ! 
 
 This June weather brought such longing days 
 days when all the unrest of her nature awoke and 
 thrust forth a claim for recognition, days when she 
 tried to persuade herself into caring for Rob Western. 
 Marrying him would mean escape from the monotony 
 and narrowness of this passive existence which pressed 
 upon her more heavily now that she had tasted the
 
 184 MARY CAMERON: A ROMANCE 
 
 charm of congenial companionship and breathed the 
 larger breath of life ; but in her heart she felt this 
 would be doing him cruel injustice. 
 
 Rob Weston wrote twice during the week after her 
 return, passionate, pleading letters, and the second 
 one she answered. The next letter she did not an 
 swer ; its wild insistence almost terrified her. Then 
 no more came for several weeks. 
 
 Strongly as were her thoughts drawn toward John 
 Loring, as strongly she fought the feeling. "What 
 right have I to believe he gives me a thought beyond 
 that of simple kindness ? " she pitilessly rebuked her 
 self again and again. Yet back of all her resolution, 
 in her inner consciousness, his influence was upon her 
 life. 
 
 A half-divine, half-maddening discontent kept her 
 out of doors working around her flowers, walking, or 
 spending long hours on the rocks, reading, a pack 
 age of books, Stevenson, Kipling, Burroughs, and 
 several magazines had arrived for her not long after 
 she reached home, reading, while the unresting 
 ocean came lingeringly against the rocks at her feet, 
 and the fearless sandpipers flitted by, their soft gray 
 colors blending with the pebbles and the rocks. And
 
 OF FISHERMAN S ISLAND. 185 
 
 living thus, she felt the dream-realization of a world 
 of activity and beauty and love, made up of vague, 
 mingled images from the books she had read and the 
 experiences, real and imaginary, shadowed forth in 
 her mind. 
 
 Outwardly her life went on much as ever in the old 
 routine. More tender with her father, more patient 
 with Aunt Hetty, she fought her battles out alone. 
 There was nothing else for her than submission, save 
 stark rebellion and how could one rebel on a lonely 
 island in the midst of the sea ! Life was just dreary, 
 that was all. "Will it be this way forever?" she 
 asked herself passionately. 
 
 She began to count the time until they should go to 
 live on the mainland. At least she could forget her 
 self there in some kind of activity anything would 
 be better than these uneventful, interminable, madden 
 ing days.
 
 186 MARY CAMERON: A ROMANCE 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 "To ease another s heartache is to forget one s own." 
 
 Abraham Lincoln. 
 
 DON T you think I can get out by to-morrow?" 
 Rob Weston turned wearily on the couch and 
 looked toward John Loring, who was writing at a desk 
 in the upstairs library a man s room furnished with 
 simplicity and good taste. 
 
 " Can t tell yet, Rob," Loring answered, looking at 
 his patient critically. "The fever seems to come 
 back every night, even now." Then he raised the win 
 dow shade, straightened the rug over Rob s feet, and 
 resumed his writing. At last he laid aside his pen ; 
 it was too dark to see any longer and too warm to 
 have the gas lighted. 
 
 For more than three weeks Rob Weston had been 
 under John Lor ing s roof, ill with an attack of mala 
 rial fever, which was aggravated by an exhausted 
 system and mental despondency. Loring had found 
 him playing billiards one day at the University Club, 
 with flushed cheeks, feverish eyes, and hot hands ; 
 and he had peremptorily taken him home, none too
 
 OF FISHERMAN S ISLAND. 187 
 
 soon, for during the first ten days Rob showed such 
 depression that the doctor forbade his being left alone. 
 
 All the more because his own life was dreary, his 
 heart bitterly sore, John Loring, stilling his own rebel 
 lion, had lavished unremitting care upon Rob. It was 
 his vicarious offering to Mary Cameron. Only that 
 morning Rob had written to her ; John himself had 
 mailed the letter at Rob s request. 
 
 " You ve been good to me, John." Rob s voice 
 broke the stillness of the darkening room. " It was 
 almost a case of a stranger and you took me in. " 
 Another pause. " Do you mind if I talk about my 
 own affairs a while ? " 
 
 " Surely not. Goon." The ready answer did not 
 lack any tone of sympathy. 
 
 "It s about Miss Cameron," said Rob; the hope 
 less note in his voice filled John Loring with surprise. 
 Then after a moment he related the whole story 
 straight through. 
 
 Rob, having previously gained everything he had 
 tried for, had taken his defeat hard. 
 
 " Has she positively told you she could never care 
 for you ? " John Loring s heart seemed to stop beat 
 ing as he waited for the answer.
 
 188 MAE Y CAMERON: A ROMANCE 
 
 " Yes, told me so and written me so," said Rob, with 
 a groan. " It s no use hoping, I saw that in her face 
 that day ; she was only trying to be generous when 
 she gave me that half chance. There s no use in my 
 going to see her, so I ve got to be man enough to 
 give her up and take myself back to Europe to work 
 as soon as I can. I wrote her so this morning." 
 
 A long silence fell between the two men ; and John 
 Loring was as thankful as a woman for the darkless. 
 Presently, in a voice which soothed Rob unconsciously, 
 he led him on to talk of his work, Rob s genuine 
 love for it was unmistakable, till he found his pa 
 tient growing absent-minded and excited again. 
 
 The older man lighted the gas, mixed a quieting 
 drink and gave it to Rob, then helped him off the 
 couch into the adjoining bedroom, after Mrs. Loring, 
 a shadowy, gray-haired old lady, had come in for a 
 moment to say good-night. 
 
 When Rob had fallen asleep, John Loring left the 
 house and quickly walked the half mile that lay be 
 tween his own home and the Sargents . 
 
 " Does your invitation still hold good for that yacht 
 ing trip in August?" he asked Mrs. Sargent, who was 
 sitting on the veranda. " I find I can go with you
 
 OF FISHERMAN S ISLAND. 189 
 
 after all, unless you have asked somebody else." He 
 stood expectant before her. 
 
 kt Yes, it does for th2 sail as far as Bar Harbor ; 
 but unfortunately we have asked the Merricks to come 
 back with us from there. We shall be delighted to have 
 you go, if you think the one voyage is worth while." 
 
 " "Worth while ! I should say so, to a man who has 
 been stifled with the heat all summer." He gave an 
 excited laugh. 
 
 " Remember we expect to start about the fourth of 
 August. Stop a moment longer, can t you? Mr. 
 Sargent will be at home from the club soon." 
 
 u No, thank you. I must go back and see if my 
 patient is asleep for the night." 
 
 " You look pale and thin, John," Mrs. Sargent said, 
 with real concern, as the light from the library window 
 fell upon his face when he turned to go. " You have 
 been kinder to Rob Western than he deserves, I be 
 lieve." 
 
 "No, none too kind, I assure you. Good-night! " 
 he said, abruptly leaving her. 
 
 " What has happened to make John Loring change 
 his mind, I wonder?" queried Mrs. Sargent of her 
 husband.
 
 190 MARY CAMERON: A ROMANCE 
 
 " Above all things, don t ask him," he answered. 
 
 " Henry Sargent, do you need to say a thing like 
 that to me after you have lived with me fifteen years ? " 
 she demanded. 
 
 Rob was asleep, and John Loring sat until late into 
 the night looking upon the sensitive face, boyish 
 almost, as he lay there asleep ; and if the face lacked 
 somewhat of firmness, it was compensated for, the 
 older man thought, by the nameless charm that lay 
 in its symmetry and beauty of feature. " I should 
 think any woman could love him," he said to himself. 
 " Will it happen that his loss is my gain? " 
 
 The next two weeks dragged on leaden wings to 
 John Loring. The springs of his life ran in deep 
 places, and these springs had been deeply stirred. 
 Night and day Mary Cameron s face haunted him, and 
 to be with her again seemed the one good in all the 
 world.
 
 OF FISHERMAN S ISLAND. 191 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 " Love took up the harp of life." 
 
 Alfred Tennyson. 
 
 WHEN Mrs. Sargent wrote, later, to tell Mary 
 that they would probably reach Fisherman s 
 Island about the seventh of August on Mr. Sargent s 
 new yacht, the Atlanta, she hesitated, and finally did 
 not add that Mr. Loring would be with them. 
 
 The swift-sailing yacht came to anchor in the island 
 cove a day earlier than the Camerons, calculating the 
 average run from Boston, had expected ; but south 
 west winds had sped her swiftly along, and she was 
 a record-breaking yacht, with a spoon bow, long over 
 hang, carrying, beside her mainsail, two jibs and a 
 gaff topsail. She was about seventy feet long over 
 all, and had a good cabin with plenty of room aft. 
 
 All these details Jack, from the boathouse, was 
 taking in as the Atlanta anchored. Seeing the sailors 
 preparing to lower the tender for the party to land, 
 he ran like the wind out to the south shore, where 
 Mary was reading, with Skipper lying at her feet. 
 
 "The Sargents have come in a stunning clipper of
 
 192 MARY CAMERON: A ROMANCE 
 
 a yacht. Hurry ! She s a regular up to date flyer," 
 he exclaimed, and off he ran again. 
 
 When Mary came around the corner of the house, 
 flushed with the haste, her hair tossed by the wind, 
 the huge black dog bounding at her side, she found 
 Mr. and Mrs. Sargent sitting on the front porch, and, 
 to her amazement, Mr. Loring with them. 
 
 Mrs. Sargent began explaining. " You see, we 
 could just as well bring Mr. Loriug with us as not, 
 and he needed the voyage." She had adjusted many 
 things to her own satisfaction when she learned, im 
 mediately after John Loring s change of plan, that 
 Rob Weston had engaged passage for Europe and was 
 not going to Maine before he sailed. She liked John 
 Loring s straightforward action ; there was no half- 
 heartedness about his attitude. " That will go a long 
 way with a nature like Mary Cameron s, whatever her 
 feeling is," she told her husband, whose slower mas 
 culine comprehension had at last grasped the situation. 
 
 Mary s hand had barely touched Mr. Loring s in 
 greeting. An unconquerable shyness made her move 
 away from him and try to escape his attention. 
 
 Aunt Hetty and Captain Cameron soon appeared 
 to give their welcome the one from the little brown
 
 OF FISHERMAN S ISLAND. 193 
 
 cottage, having stopped to put on her best dress, 
 the other from the island hilltop, where he had been 
 picking raspberries. 
 
 Aunt Hetty s attempts at hospitality fitted her about 
 as smoothly as her best black cashmere gown. 
 
 " We was n t expectin you so soon, so of course 
 you did n t find us ready," she said apologetically. 
 "I don t see how we re goin to make you comfort 
 able, Mis Sargent." 
 
 " Oh, please don t trouble at all about us. We 
 shall be here only a short time, and we shall live 
 right on the yacht," replied Mrs. Sargent, turning to 
 Captain Cameron, whose delight over the guests was 
 unbounded. With the dignity that never deserted 
 him, he said : 
 
 "I m sure I m glad to see you. You gave my 
 little girl such a good time this spring as she never 
 had before," and he put his hand on Mary s shoulder. 
 She had drawn near him, and as she now stood by 
 him, before her friends, she felt John Loring s glance 
 upon her, bringing the rich color anew to her face. 
 
 It was the same sweet face under the gleaming 
 hair ; but the eyes had lost something of the content 
 he had first noted in Newton ; there was a suggestion,
 
 194 MARY CAMEEON: A ROMANCE 
 
 too, of dependence on her father as she stood there 
 by his side, less of the unconscious self-reliance 
 she had shown before. 
 
 " We will have an early supper on the boat, and 
 then come up and sit on your porch through the 
 twilight," Mrs. Sargent was saying ; she feared their 
 unexpected arrival might have disconcerted Mary. 
 "Come, too, Mary, I shall call you Mary, now. 
 We are going to cruise up the Sheepscot River to 
 morrow, and you must go with us for the day. 
 
 "Oh, thank you, I should like to go, but "; the 
 girl was plainly embarrassed. 
 
 " No buts ! We have n t sailed all the way from 
 Boston to see you, only to have you disappoint us. 
 We start with you at nine o clock to-morrow morning, 
 sharp, to catch the tide," said Mr. Sargent. 
 
 "Of course you re going, Mary," put in Aunt 
 Hetty ; " there ain t a thing to keep you home." 
 
 Overruled as to the yachting, Mary begged off from 
 the supper. " I shall need the time," she insisted, 
 " if I am going to be away to-morrow." 
 
 "Why, oh, why, has he come? I cannot bear it!" 
 Mary cried to herself, in the brief interval she had 
 alone. All her staunch resolution had deserted her ;
 
 OF FISHERMAN S ISLAND. 195 
 
 she felt weak and unnerved. The touch of his hand, 
 the sight of his face, with its pallor, which the yacht 
 ing voyage had failed to remove, roused her into the 
 knowledge that she must fight the battle through 
 again. She dared not, must not give way now, for 
 the Sargents were her friends, and they had come to 
 see her. But it was with a heavy heart that she met 
 them again after supper. 
 
 "What beautiful flowers!" exclaimed Mrs. Sar 
 gent, as she caught sight of the little garden full 
 of summer fragrance, for Mary s care had been 
 rewarded with an abundance of blossoms, brilliant 
 and fragrant. 
 
 "Come here, Margaret, quick!" Mr. Sargent 
 called to his wife from the porch. Down by the boat- 
 house, in the midst of encircling white wings, the old 
 captain stood feeding innumerable white gulls. Tame 
 and fearless they hovered around, almost taking the 
 food from his hands ; and he, standing among them, 
 seemed like a shepherd with his sheep, only for a 
 moment, though, as, startled by Mrs. Sargent s mov 
 ing nearer, the gulls vanished in a whirring clond. 
 
 " So you live here with flowers and birds," said Mr. 
 Loring to Mary, walking up to her.
 
 196 MAEY CAMERON: A ROMANCE 
 
 "May we go in to see your speak-a-bit corner 
 that you told me about?" asked Mrs. Sargent. And 
 moving away quickly from Mr. Loring, Mary led the 
 way into the house. 
 
 The best room was full of spicy wood fragrance 
 mingled with the sea atmosphere that salt, savory 
 odor, distinctly tangible. 
 
 "Such priceless things as you have here!" cried 
 Mrs. Sargent, examining the tables, the china, and 
 the ornaments, with the delight of a connoisseur. 
 Aunt Hetty, in the background, listened with swelling 
 pride. 
 
 " What is this? my curiosity conquers me," asked 
 Mrs. Sargent, stepping in front of an inlaid tip-table. 
 
 " Oh, nothin much," answered Captain Cameron, 
 opening the mahogany case and showing an instrument 
 on its worn velvet lining. "That s my sextant, the 
 only one of my sea instruments left, old an rusty 
 like myself, now." 
 
 John Loring s eyes lingered over every detail of 
 the room ; here, as Mary told them, was where she 
 spent much of her time. He saw the books he 
 had sent her filling the bookcase Jack had built into 
 her corner. He picked up one lying on the table
 
 OF FISHEEMAN S ISLAND. 197 
 
 near by. It was a copy of Tennyson, and where 
 the book opened in his hand he saw underlined the 
 words : 
 
 " A man more pure and bold and just 
 Was never born into the earth," 
 
 and at the side, written in Mary s hand, "This is my 
 father." He closed the book, reverently. 
 
 The perfume of the mignonette stole around the 
 house as they sat on the porch in the twilight. The 
 night was perfectly calm, silent, and filled with a 
 transparent haze ; the sea was moving only because 
 the tide lifted it. 
 
 " Stars are a kind of bread an butter that never 
 fails the sailor," said Captain Cameron. The Sargents 
 were leaving the conversation to him, and he had been 
 spinning sea yarns ; he had just ended one with 
 "I tell you, it s a sublime sight to see a full-rigged 
 clipper ship, specially on a dark night, with the 
 wind whistlin through her shrouds, when mebbe the 
 men have to go aloft on the yards to take in the 
 sails, with the ship driviu ahead into the black 
 ness, an all the water showin those phosphorescent 
 items." 
 
 " I don t understand how you could settle down
 
 198 MARY CAMERON: A ROMANCE 
 
 here after your stirring life, Captain Cameron," said 
 Mr. Sargent. 
 
 " Well, you see, sir," answered the old man, 
 after a moment s thought. "It ain t life itself in 
 lonely places that s the matter ; it s the way peo 
 ple feel toward each other that makes em happy or 
 miserable wherever they are. Sometimes I get beat, 
 I admit, when the weather s bad for a long spell 
 or the lobster traps are specially hard to haul ; but 
 then I always go back to David an his Psalms. No 
 one ever had a harder time than he did. I expect 
 livin out here s come hardest on my little girl," he 
 added. 
 
 "I ve been happy enough with you, father," came 
 Mary s low voice in the darkness. She was sitting in 
 the chair next to him, and no one saw her slip her 
 hand into his ; that worn, hard hand seemed to hush 
 the tumult in her heart. 
 
 John Loring was leaning against the ridge of rock 
 close to the porch, not far from Mary ; she could feel 
 how near. 
 
 ** Those dear, drowsy crickets are positively sending 
 me to sleep," said Mrs. Sargent, breaking the silence 
 that had fallen over them all. " Life on the ocean
 
 OF FISHERMAN S ISLAND. 199 
 
 wave, anyway, is the best sleeping potion I know. 
 It must be time we went back to the yacht." 
 
 There was a little more talk about to-morrow s 
 plans, then Mary and her father walked down to the 
 wharf to see the guests into the tender. John Loring 
 had counted, for the last half hour, that she would 
 give him her hand when she said good-night ; but she 
 eluded him. The evening had brought meager satis 
 faction to him ; instead, he felt a gnawing anxiety 
 lest his coming was in vain, she had shown so little 
 gladness to see him, had indeed so plainly avoided 
 him. 
 
 The seventh of August dawned, a rare, golden day. 
 A rush of pure joy in living, of fulness of feeling, 
 swept over John Loring, something of the old 
 childlike feeling of fearless trust that comes back to 
 us, with the richness of mature experience between. 
 " I must have faith in what other days, if not this 
 day, will bring forth," he said, reassuring himself. 
 
 The morning sunshine lay bright on the sparkling 
 water, the air was strongly salt and stimulating, when 
 the party gathered for the start. Mary, up since day 
 break, after a restless night, had gained a little fresh 
 courage with the day ; but there was a tension about
 
 200 MARY CAMERON: A ROMANCE 
 
 her that suggested the undergoing of a trying ordeal, 
 rather than the beginning of a day of pleasure. She 
 wore her dark blue dress, with its coat, a white shirt 
 waist, and a white sailor hat ; Mrs. Sargent s glance 
 swept over her with approval. 
 
 " It s a splendid day for a sail," said Captain Cam 
 eron, waiting on the wharf to see the Atlanta start; 
 " the wind 11 be with you all the way up the river, an 
 yon 11 have the tide comin back." 
 
 Moved by an irresistible impulse, Aunt Hetty kissed 
 Mary good-by. Watching now from the kitchen win 
 dow to see the last of the Atlanta, she suddenly put her 
 apron over her eyes. " What an old fool I am ! " she 
 said ; " but I s pose everybody was young once." 
 
 Back in the north lay Boothbay, its wide harbor 
 filled with white-winged yachts and dingy, picturesque 
 coasters. In the southwest Squirrel Island showed 
 gay with bright-painted cottages. Over in the east 
 the Ocean Point colony basked in the sunlight, while 
 here and there busy steamboats plied about, laden 
 with summer travelers, and many schooners, Iwuud 
 for the Banks, like gulls were skimming over the 
 water on long tacks, now half-concealed in its troughs, 
 now tossed on the tops of the billows.
 
 OF FISHERMAN S ISLAND. 201 
 
 " Better go out round Cape Newagen an into the 
 Sheepscot," said Captain Cameron, when the At- 
 lanta s sailing ra aster had asked his advice; "you ll 
 never have a better chance, tho it s a reef tops l 
 breeze." 
 
 The wind, against the tide when they started, blew 
 up a heavy sea, and when they reached the Cuckolds 
 rocks, they were running under reefed mainsail ; even 
 then, to keep the boat up they had to ease the sheet 
 until the luff bagged five or six feet. 
 
 " Going around Cape Newagen means a rough pas 
 sage, with a wind like this," said Mary. "Do you 
 mind it?" she asked, for Mrs. Sargent was growing 
 pale. 
 
 "Mind it! I m a wretched sailor except before 
 the wind," replied Mrs. Sargent. " I must go below 
 and lie down," she added, disappearing. 
 
 Mary s eyes had kindled with the stir of the 
 Atlanta s rush through the water ; the wind and the 
 motion disturbed her not a whit, but a feeling of dis 
 may seized her. She had hardly spoken to Mr. 
 Loring thus far that morning ; now, the sense of Mrs. 
 Sargent s presence lost, she avoided as much as a look 
 in his direction.
 
 202 MARY CAMERON: A ROMANCE 
 
 They were dashing through the waves, leaving be 
 hind them a long trail of sparkling foam. Out at sea 
 was a wide sweep of blue, reaching far to the open 
 ocean, which lay rolling, tossing, and breaking into 
 white caps under the bright sunshine. 
 
 " You must have a warmer wrap, Miss Cameron." 
 Mr. Loring brought his steamer-rug to her as he 
 spoke. Her face was aglow with excitement. 
 
 " No, I don t need it," she protested. 
 
 But he proceeded to fold the rug over her shoulders. 
 A stray tress of her gold-brown hair blew across his 
 coat sleeve. She had never looked more winning. 
 
 " Thank you," she said coldly, " I really don t need 
 the wrap." But she could not help a thrill of pleas 
 ure at being taken care of in this strong, manly 
 fashion. 
 
 "Is she shy or just indifferent?" he asked himself 
 as he walked away and seated himself on the deck of 
 the cabin, sore puzzled to account for her coolness. 
 
 His position gave Mary a chance to observe him 
 more closely than she had before done. He looked 
 younger in his knickerbockers and short rough blue 
 coat than she had thought him in Newton ; but his face 
 had not worn that look of care, nor the sense of
 
 OF FISHERMAN S ISLAND. 203 
 
 defeat which it now showed in repose, as he sat there 
 looking eastward toward Fisherman s Island, vanish 
 ing in the distance. Her heart smote her vaguely as 
 she saw the sadness in his expression ; the sympa 
 thetic element is never far absent from the heart of a 
 woman. 
 
 "What s that steamboat off there to the south 
 ward?" asked Mr. Sargent of the man at the wheel. 
 " One of the White Squadron, yes," he said, answer 
 ing his own question as he looked through the marine 
 glasses. "They re ahead of time, too, and that 
 means we will have to go on to Bar Harbor to 
 morrow, Miss Cameron, I m sorry to say." 
 
 Mary turned abruptly, as if to brush the hair away 
 from her face, when Mr. Sargent began consulting the 
 sailing-master about tides and courses. " Only one 
 day out of a whole summer of days ! " she said to 
 herself, passionately. The day which had looked 
 interminable at the outset, now all at once seemed to 
 be but a fleeting moment. 
 
 John Loring gave the White Squadron scant wel 
 come in his thoughts. He had counted ou two or 
 three days cruising, at the least, in the vicinity of 
 Fisherman s Island. "Only to-day, and she is so
 
 204 MARY CAMERON: A ROMANCE 
 
 strange, so remote ! Dare I risk it ? Can I wait ? " 
 he asked himself. 
 
 They had rounded Cape Newagen, with its pictur 
 esque fishing settlement. Heading up the river, they 
 met the flood tide, and the master soon had the 
 Atlanta under full sail as she ran before the wind, 
 passing the Southport shores and Heudrick s Head 
 light. The motion grew easier and up opposite 
 Ebenecook Harbor, Mrs. Sargent appeared in the 
 companion-way, pale yet, but triumphant. 
 
 " We are in smoother water, I know," she said. 
 " What! way around the Cape and I have n t seen it! 
 Never mind, what is scenery without the capacity to 
 enjoy it ! " 
 
 " We ve got the wind abaft the beam now, ma am," 
 said the sailing master ; "no more heavy seas to-day." 
 
 "Did I hear you speaking of the Squadron?" 
 asked Mrs. Sargent, seating herself by the side of 
 Mary, and taking the girl s firm, browned hand into 
 hers. " I wish you could go to Bar Harbor with us." 
 
 " Yes, we sighted one of the steamships," answered 
 Mr. Sargent, " and we 11 have to make for Mt. Desert 
 to-morrow ; we almost ought to start to-night on 
 account of possible fogs."
 
 OF FISHERMAN S ISLAND. 205 
 
 Mrs. Sargent felt the hand within her own tighten 
 convulsively. 
 
 "To-night? not to-night, surely," said Mr. Loring, 
 with a quick glance at Mrs. Sargent. 
 
 "We will see about it later," Mrs. Sargent replied. 
 " A dozen parties and receptions are n t to be put in 
 the balance with a day like this on the Sheepscot 
 River. Mary," the girl, who had been looking 
 straight in front of her, out to sea, turned toward 
 her " your aunt came down to the wharf this morn 
 ing, and we had a good visit together. She says she 
 shall be glad enough to go back to Boothbay." 
 
 "Yes, Aunt Hetty enjoys people," said Mary, 
 absently. 
 
 " She told me some interesting things about you 
 and Jack. Evidently the sun rises and sets, in her 
 eyes, for you both. She said you both had been 
 brought up to feel no fear, or at least, if you feel it, 
 not to show it. I liked that." 
 
 Was there any -meaning back of Mrs. Sargent s 
 words? Mary wondered. At all events they roused 
 her. " What is there to be afraid of, ever? " she said, 
 a sudden gleam of her old happy smile lighting her 
 face.
 
 206 MARY CAMERON: A ROMANCE 
 
 "Your aunt told me, too, about the accident Jack 
 had last winter, and how you had the Kady raised for 
 him," Mrs. Sargent went on. " Why didn t you tell 
 me about it? " 
 
 " I did n t think it was worth telling you," she 
 said ; but then and there Mrs. Sargent went over the 
 whole story, which had lost nothing from Aunt Hetty s 
 relating. 
 
 " Mrs. Sargent, you are making too much of it," at 
 last Mary interrupted in self-defense. 
 
 "No, I m not; but I will spare you further con 
 fusion. Still, perhaps women always exaggerate in 
 their stories ; men say we do." 
 
 "I wish you had heard your aunt talking about 
 Jack, and seen her as she straightened herself and 
 snapped her eyes ! " exclaimed Mrs. Sargent after a 
 moment. " It isn t that I m proud of him, she 
 said, because I believe when you re proud of things 
 you have them taken away ; but I m pleased. Jack 
 has n t so much school learning as some, but he can 
 row a boat and shoot a gun and stand up straight and 
 tell the truth. " 
 
 " Pretty good recommendation for a young man," 
 said Mr. Sargent, heartily. "He looks it, too."
 
 OF FISHERMAN S ISLAND. 207 
 
 After that they fell to talking of the scenes along 
 the way, as the river, narrowing, brought them nearer 
 to the shores. Fresh odors from the fields mingled 
 with the saltness of the air, and the cloudless sky 
 revealed that tenderness which no painter or poet can 
 ever re- image. 
 
 On the Atlanta bore them, past McCarthy s Cove, 
 past the mouth of the Cross River, past Fowle s Point 
 and "the Indian." that myth figure on the rocks of 
 the Westport shore, up to Edgecomb Eddy and the 
 Sheepscot Narrows, where the fortified government 
 blockhouse, dating back to 1812, stands guard on 
 Davis Island enchanted island, with its dreamy, 
 delicious woods ; and high noon found them just be 
 yond the Narrows, where the river widens out into the 
 noble harbor at Wiscasset. 
 
 "Dear old Wiscasset and its long bridge!" ex 
 claimed Mrs. Sargent; "what good times we have 
 had here, Henry," she added. 
 
 " Yes, that long bridge could tell many a tale," he 
 answered. "The old town has romance and history 
 enough to make a dozen books." 
 
 "Wasn t it here that Miss Howard wrote One 
 Summer ? " asked Mr. Loring.
 
 208 MARY CAMERON: A ROMANCE 
 
 " Yes," answered Mrs. Sargent; "only Edgecorab 
 was Wiscasset, and Wiscasset Edgecomb in her story." 
 
 " We will come here next year for more than a 
 look," said Mr. Sargent; "but now we must turn 
 about if we want to get down the river before night 
 fall." 
 
 Seizing an opportunity, John Loring drew Mrs. Sar 
 gent aside after dinner, which they had the steward 
 serve on deck. "For heaven s sake, don t start for 
 Bar Harbor to-night," he said in a low voice ; "though 
 I don t know that it matters ! " 
 
 " Trust me," she answered. Then she added, 
 " Trust yourself John, too." 
 
 The strong, beautiful day wore on. The afternoon 
 sun bathed everything with warmth, yet the delicious 
 sea breeze tempered the heat. All the air was slum 
 brous with the minute music of insect life. There 
 was less wind than in the morning, but the sailing- 
 master took advantage of all there was, and the At 
 lanta made good headway. 
 
 " Probably Miss-Cameron does n t want to have this 
 fragrant air spoiled by your cigar smoke," said Mrs. 
 Sargent after a while, with a significant glance at her 
 husband ; " come out to the bow with me for your
 
 OF FISHERMAN S ISLAND. 209 
 
 smoke I am going out there to read." And she 
 walked away, expecting him to follow. 
 
 But Mr. Sargent was too comfortable to leave the 
 cushioned stern, and as Mary quickly said, " Oh, no, 
 I like the cigar smoke, do stay here," he remained, 
 for lie was already dozing. 
 
 " I found Sidney Lanier s poems in the cabin," said 
 Mr. Loring, coming up to Mary ; he had been wander 
 ing restlessly over the yacht, and this was the first 
 time he had deliberately approached her since the rug 
 episode in the morning. " Would you care to have 
 me read aloud ? We seem to be left very much to our 
 own devices." 
 
 " I wish you would read," she answered, turning 
 her eyes upon him momentarily ; she had been giving 
 herself up by degrees to the dangerous delight of the 
 day. 
 
 He threw aside his yachting cap ; the awning was 
 sufficient protection from the sun. Yes, he was thin 
 ner, his temples showed it ; and Mary s heart smote 
 her again. " How hard he works ! " she thought. 
 
 All men of the finer fiber feel the relation between 
 themselves and nature, the contact with something 
 more than is seen, the divine immanence. John
 
 210 MART CAMERON: A ROMANCE 
 
 Loring felt this relation, this suggest! veness, vividly. 
 Opening the book, he began reading in deep, rich 
 tones, which gave back the echo of his soul, the mar 
 velous " Sunrise " poem. 
 
 Once he let his eyes wander off over the fields and 
 hills. " Think what the freedom of this country here 
 would mean to people in hot, crowded city streets 
 to-day, especially the children, with never a breath 
 of fresh air ! " he said ; then he turned to the book 
 again. 
 
 As he read, glancing at her from time to time, he 
 saw that the music of the poem brought into her eyes 
 the same rested, roused expression he had seen that 
 day at the symphony concert. 
 
 " Do you want to hear a song sparrow that belongs 
 right where you are reading? Listen!" she said, as 
 a child might. 
 
 Together they listened. No other sound than the 
 pure cadence of the bird disturbed the echoless air ; 
 the place and the day had found a voice. 
 
 From the "Sunrise" poem John Loring turned to 
 " The Marshes of Glynn." Mary followed the read 
 ing closely, the beautiful word images stamping them 
 selves on her mind.
 
 OF FISHEBMAN S ISLAND. 211 
 
 " good out of infinite pain, 
 And sight out of blindness, " 
 
 he repeated, stopping the reading there. 
 
 The air and the regular sound of John Loring s 
 voice had sent Mr. Sargent off to sleep. But there 
 was the sailing-master at the wheel. 
 
 Mr. Loring moved and seated himself opposite the 
 man, who was well behind Mary. She looked up, 
 expecting him to go on reading. As she met his eyes, 
 her own eyes were held by a look that seemed to pene 
 trate to the depths of her soul. 
 
 Just then Mr. Sargent stirred and roused himself, 
 saying, " I must have been taking forty winks." 
 
 John Loring muttered something beneath his breath 
 and went forward, where he remained talking with 
 Mrs. Sargent. When they came aft again, Mrs. 
 Sargent said : 
 
 " I am sure we would better stay at anchor to-night 
 and get an early start to-morrow, Henry. I m not 
 a good sailor, you know, and you don t want to take 
 a dragged-out woman to the Bar Harbor festivities." 
 
 " This is better than parties," assented Mr. Sargent 
 lazily. " How about the wind to-morrow?" he asked 
 the sailing-master.
 
 212 MARY CAMERON: A ROMANCE 
 
 "Oh, it may haul round a few p ints to the west- 
 *ard," answered the man, his round blue eyes on Mrs. 
 Sargent he saw that she was averse to starting. 
 "This is the kind o wind that dies out at night, sir, 
 so we would n t make much headway if we was to 
 start, an there ain t a mite of fog anywheres." 
 
 " That settles it," said Mrs. Sargent promptly. 
 "How stupid, anyway, to go back to good clothes 
 and ceremony after this informal existence ! " 
 
 " You knew all about Bar Harbor beforehand," re 
 monstrated Mr. Sargent. " For my part, I like isola 
 tion." 
 
 " So do I with somebody in it," she replied. 
 
 Then they fell to talking about books, and from 
 books to travel. " Books are good, but they don t 
 take the place of people and travel for inspiration in 
 living," was Mrs. Sargent s dismissal of the subject. 
 
 " How much longer are the Kenda//s 10 be abroad? " 
 asked Mr. Sargent. 
 
 "Until December. I suppose they will see Rob 
 Weston again in Paris," answered Mrs. Sargent. 
 
 Mary s face did not change a whit under John Lor- 
 ing s watchful glance. She kept away from him yet, 
 but she had lost the sense of dread and fear ; it was
 
 OF FIHHEKMAN S ISLAND. 213 
 
 impossible to hold them, after that look, that revela 
 tion of one soul to the other. Come what might, she 
 had this precious day for her own, always. 
 
 The Sargents reminiscenced long over Italy, where 
 they had spent a year of their early married life ; and 
 Mary, who knew many a story of foreign countries 
 from her father, told them in that low voice which was 
 music to John Loring s ears. 
 
 Five o clock found the Atlanta plowing her way 
 through the back passage out into the waters of 
 Mouse Island and Boothbay. Steamboats and pleas 
 ure parties in the many catboats that cruise here 
 abouts saluted the handsome, swift-sailing yacht as 
 she passed, and the Atlanta dipped her pennant in 
 reply . 
 
 " Let s have supper out of the way before we come 
 to anchor, then we can go up to see the sunset from the 
 top of Fisherman s," said Mrs. Sargent, as the slant 
 shadows told of the closing day. " Miss Cameron 
 was regretting last evening that we had n t gone, for 
 she says the outlook is glorious." 
 
 Supper was a farce to John Loring, and to Mary 
 likewise. One thought was in the mind of each the 
 day, the perfect day, was almost over. John Loring s
 
 214 MARY CAMEROX: A ROMANCE 
 
 eyes were dark with intensity of feeling. He did not 
 succeed in meeting her eyes. 
 
 They reached Fisherman s Island before six o clock ; 
 and this time the Atlanta came up to the wharf, for 
 the sailing-master had learned the bearings of the 
 cove. 
 
 " I must go home and look after father first," said 
 Mary, once landed. It was Mr. Sargent who helped 
 her out, spite of John Loring s intent. 
 
 "May I walk over to the house with you?" asked 
 Mr. Loring. 
 
 " Thank you," she said. " Skipper is here to meet 
 me." " Why is she so blind?" thought Mrs. Sargent. 
 
 "Come back so we can start in half an hour," she 
 called out, as Mary walked away, one hand on the 
 dog s head. 
 
 Captain Cameron was off somewhere in his dory ; 
 Mary had seen this at a glance when they sailed into 
 the cove. 
 
 Once inside the house she threw herself on the bed 
 in her own room. The swift reaction frotp the day s 
 tension overcame her. Away from them all, away 
 from him, she felt the slight thread of happiness spun 
 in the golden afternoon slip from her grasp. Was
 
 OF FISHERMAN S ISLAND. 215 
 
 this love, this mysterious relation to another soul? 
 Could she see him again? But she must, and the 
 moments were going ! 
 
 She rose and went to the open window, letting the 
 cool air blow on her face. It would be only a few 
 hours longer, then this would go out of her life again. 
 
 How bitterly cruel it all was ! Why did God let it 
 come to her? Was God a father, if when his children 
 asked bread, they received only a stone? "My own 
 father would be kinder!" she exclaimed. Had he 
 ever refused or withheld anything he thought she ought 
 to have? Could God be less kind? Blindly her faith 
 groped back, led by the thought of the gentle old man 
 whose own faith was almost lost in sight. She tried 
 to pray, but the words would not come. 
 
 Was it in answer to her wish to pray that a sudden 
 recollection came to her? When they had entered the 
 house last evening, her father, divining her agitation, 
 had lifted her face toward him. 
 
 " Something is troubling my daughter," he said, and 
 she had answered, " Father, can you always trust 
 the will of God?" 
 
 " Always." How clear his voice had sounded. " My 
 only fear is that I shall let my own will conflict with it."
 
 216 MARY CAMERON: A ItOMANCE 
 
 Skipper had followed her into the room. She felt 
 his rough tongue gently licking her hand. 
 
 " Dear Skipper," she cried, throwing her arms 
 around the dog s neck ; "we must go now." 
 
 She brushed back her rumpled hair, removed the 
 traces of the hot tears that had started, steadied her 
 self with her hand on the door before she left the 
 house, then walked, bareheaded, toward the wharf. 
 
 John Loring watched her approach, fear and hope 
 contending in his heart. Against those somber gray 
 rocks, coining along that footpath, was where he had 
 first seen her, at that first annual meeting of the 
 owners tall and lithe then as now, but now with the 
 softening grace of womanhood about her. There was 
 something untamed and fearless in her bearing ; com 
 munion with nature had set an indelible trace upon 
 her. She was unlike other women, for it is only in 
 solitude that strong natures grow up in their own way ; 
 and Mary had grown into womanhood in one of the 
 solitary places of the earth. 
 
 Aware that the traces of her emotion showed in her 
 face, Mary carried herself yet the more bravely, one 
 hand buried in the dog s black fur. As she stopped 
 in front of them, Mrs. Sargent held out her hand.
 
 OF FISHERMAN S ISLAND. 217 
 
 "My courage fails me," she said; she was leaning 
 against a post on the wharf, vigorously applying her 
 smelling-salts. " I have a wretched, dizzy headache, 
 so you will have to excuse me from seeing the sunset 
 with you. But the rest of you go, just the same." 
 
 "I can t stand that stiff climb!" exclaimed Mr. 
 Sargent, glancing up at the steep hillside in apparent 
 dismay. " Sitting around boats all day is hard work 
 for a man used to his comfortable office chair." 
 
 " We may as well give up going," said Mary, in an 
 indifferent voice; "it will be almost as beautiful 
 here." She was standing like a statue ; her hard- 
 won self-control steadied her. 
 
 "But we don t get any view here; I want to see 
 the sunset from the hilltop," urged Mr. Loring, with 
 uncompromising insistence. 
 
 " You young people can climb hills better than Mr. 
 Sargent and I can," said Mrs. Sargent, " we will wait 
 here for you. Go, Mary," she added; "it will be a 
 positive charity to put a view such as you say it is 
 into the mind of a tired man who declares that he 
 must go back to his work next week." 
 
 Mary turned to Jack ; he was looking the Atlanta 
 over with a critical eye. " Come with us, Jack."
 
 218 MARY CAMERON: A ROMANCE 
 
 But Jack was deaf to the mingled entreaty and 
 command in her voice. Boats were even dearer than 
 Mary. " I can see the sunset any time. The sailing- 
 master s going to draw a model of the yacht for me ; 
 he says the Kady s got some first-rate lines," answered 
 the all-absorbed Jack. 
 
 There was no escape. "Why should I be afraid," 
 thought Mary proudly. "It will only take a few 
 minutes," she said, with a glance at the sun which 
 was sinking fast. 
 
 Turning, she walked ahead up the path. Skipper 
 started to follow, stopped after a few rods, then 
 walked back toward the house. Mary did not miss 
 him, but she heard John Loring s sure step close be 
 hind her. 
 
 She refused his proffered help from one rocky point 
 to another. 
 
 Seeing her mood, he did not offer to assist her 
 again, though the way was steep and rough. 
 
 He had brought his steamer rug, and this he spread 
 on the summit rock for her, seating himself a few feet 
 away. 
 
 Slowly the sun sank into the cloudless west, and the 
 purple light fell on sea and land.
 
 OF FISHERMAN S ISLAND. 219 
 
 Burnt Island and Ram Island lights had flashed out 
 when the sun went down, Seguin, too, Pemaquid, and 
 Monhegan, miles away at sea ; she told them to him, 
 one by one, with never a look at him. 
 
 The stars throbbed forth in the heavens, and the 
 glory began dimming in the west ; the night opened its 
 heart, and the splendor of the eternities drew all about 
 them. 
 
 A dreaming bird called to its mate. No other sound 
 disturbed the echoless air, and the silence fell like 
 music on their souls. 
 
 " I must go now," Mary said, rising and breaking 
 the silence. 
 
 You liked what I read to you this afternoon ? " he 
 asked, rising too. His eyes were turned seaward. 
 
 " Yes " ; her voice shook a little. 
 
 "There is another poem I wanted to read to you, 
 not from Lanier, but something I have always liked. 
 This is part of it," and he began : 
 
 " We two stood there with never a third, 
 But each by each, as each knew well ; 
 The sights we saw and the sounds we heard, 
 The lights and the shades made up a spell 
 Till the trouble grew and stirred."
 
 220 
 
 MARY CAMERON: A ROMANCE. 
 
 He waited a moment. " Shall I go on?" he asked, 
 turning his eyes to her. She met his look. 
 
 " Oh, the little more, and how much it is ! " 
 
 but the rest of the verse remained unquoted, for that 
 look drew them together. 
 
 There is a moment when souls know all, without that 
 one should utter a word.
 
 A 000 088 696 o