coming to an end.
"Yes, they're all makin' towards the shore,--the small craft

an' the lobster smacks an' all," said my companion. "We must spend
a little time with mother now, just to have our tea, an' then put

for home."
"No matter if we lose the wind at sundown; I can row in with

Johnny," said I; and Mrs. Todd nodded reassuringly and kept to her
steady plod, not quickening her gait even when we saw William come

round the corner of the house as if to look for us, and wave his
hand and disappear.

"Why, William's right on deck; I didn't know's we should see
any more of him!" exclaimed Mrs. Todd. "Now mother'll put the

kettle right on; she's got a good fire goin'." I too could see the
blue smoke thicken, and then we both walked a little faster, while

Mrs. Todd groped in her full bag of herbs to find the
daguerreotypes and be ready to put them in their places.

XI
The Old Singers

WILLIAM WAS sitting on the side door step, and the old mother was
busy making her tea; she gave into my hand an old flowered-glass

tea-caddy.
"William thought you'd like to see this, when he was settin'

the table. My father brought it to my mother from the island
of Tobago; an' here's a pair of beautiful mugs that came with it."

She opened the glass door of a little cupboard beside the chimney.
"These I call my best things, dear," she said. "You'd laugh to see

how we enjoy 'em Sunday nights in winter: we have a real company
tea 'stead o' livin' right along just the same, an' I make

somethin' good for a s'prise an' put on some o' my preserves, an'
we get a'talkin' together an' have real pleasant times."

Mrs. Todd laughed indulgently, and looked to see what I
thought of such childishness.

"I wish I could be here some Sunday evening," said I.
"William an' me'll be talkin' about you an' thinkin' o' this

nice day," said Mrs. Blackett affectionately, and she glanced at
William, and he looked up bravely and nodded. I began to discover

that he and his sister could not speak their deeper feelings before
each other.

"Now I want you an' mother to sing," said Mrs. Todd abruptly,
with an air of command, and I gave William much sympathy in his

evident distress.
"After I've had my cup o' tea, dear," answered the old hostess

cheerfully; and so we sat down and took our cups and made merry
while they lasted. It was impossible not to wish to stay on

forever at Green Island, and I could not help saying so.
"I'm very happy here, both winter an' summer," said old Mrs.

Blackett. "William an' I never wish for any other home, do we,
William? I'm glad you find it pleasant; I wish you'd come an'

stay, dear, whenever you feel inclined. But here's Almiry; I
always think Providence was kind to plot an' have her husband leave

her a good house where she really belonged. She'd been very
restless if she'd had to continue here on Green Island. You wanted

more scope, didn't you, Almiry, an' to live in a large place where
more things grew? Sometimes folks wonders that we don't live

together; perhaps we shall some time," and a shadow of sadness and
apprehension flitted across her face. "The time o' sickness an'

failin' has got to come to all. But Almiry's got an herb that's
good for everything." She smiled as she spoke, and looked bright

again.
"There's some herb that's good for everybody, except for them

that thinks they're sick when they ain't," announced Mrs. Todd,
with a truly professional air of finality. "Come, William, let's

have Sweet Home, an' then mother'll sing Cupid an' the Bee for us."
Then followed a most charming surprise. William mastered his

timidity and began to sing. His voice was a little faint and
frail, like the family daguerreotypes, but it was a tenor voice,

and perfectly true and sweet. I have never heard Home, Sweet Home
sung as touchingly and seriously as he sang it; he seemed to

make it quite new; and when he paused for a moment at the end of
the first line and began the next, the old mother joined him and

they sang together, she missing only the higher notes, where he
seemed to lend his voice to hers for the moment and carry on her

very note and air. It was the silent man's real and only means of
expression, and one could have listened forever, and have asked for

more and more songs of old Scotch and English inheritance and the
best that have lived from the ballad music of the war. Mrs. Todd

kept time visibly, and sometimes audibly, with her ample foot. I
saw the tears in her eyes sometimes, when I could see beyond the

tears in mine. But at last the songs ended and the time came to
say good-by; it was the end of a great pleasure.

Mrs. Blackett, the dear old lady, opened the door of her
bedroom while Mrs. Todd was tying up the herb bag, and William had

gone down to get the boat ready and to blow the horn for Johnny
Bowden, who had joined a roving boat party who were off the shore

lobstering.
I went to the door of the bedroom, and thought how pleasant it

looked, with its pink-and-white patchwork quilt and the brown
unpainted paneling of its woodwork.

"Come right in, dear," she said. "I want you to set down in
my old quilted rockin'-chair there by the window; you'll say it's

the prettiest view in the house. I set there a good deal to rest
me and when I want to read."

There was a worn red Bible on the lightstand, and Mrs.
Blackett's heavy silver-bowed glasses; her thimble was on the

narrow window-ledge, and folded carefully on the table was a thick
striped-cotton shirt that she was making for her son. Those dear

old fingers and their loving stitches, that heart which had made
the most of everything that needed love! Here was the real home,

the heart of the old house on Green Island! I sat in the rocking-
chair, and felt that it was a place of peace, the little brown

bedroom, and the quiet outlook upon field and sea and sky.
I looked up, and we understood each other without speaking.

"I shall like to think o' your settin' here to-day," said Mrs.
Blackett. "I want you to come again. It has been so pleasant for

William."
The wind served us all the way home, and did not fall or let

the sail slacken until we were close to the shore. We had a
generous freight of lobsters in the boat, and new potatoes which

William had put aboard, and what Mrs. Todd proudly called a full
"kag" of prime number one salted mackerel; and when we landed we

had to make business arrangements to have these conveyed to her
house in a wheelbarrow.

I never shall forget the day at Green Island. The town of
Dunnet Landing seemed large and noisy and oppressive as we came

ashore. Such is the power of contrast; for the village was
so still that I could hear the shy whippoorwills singing that night

as I lay awake in my downstairs bedroom, and the scent of Mrs.
Todd's herb garden under the window blew in again and again with

every gentle rising of the seabreeze.
XII

A Strange Sail
EXCEPT FOR a few stray guests, islanders or from the inland

country, to whom Mrs. Todd offered the hospitalities of a single
meal, we were quite by ourselves all summer; and when there were

signs of invasion, late in July, and a certain Mrs. Fosdick
appeared like a strange sail on the far horizon, I suffered much

from apprehension. I had been living in the quaint little house