"I." He was beginning to be half aware of a personal unhappiness,
because Hetty showed no more consciousness of his existence. Her few
words this morning about returning home had produced startling results
in his mind; like those a chemist sometimes sees in his crucible, when,
on throwing in a single drop of some powerful agent, he discovers by its
instantaneous and infallible test, the presence of things he had not
suspected were there. Dr. Eben Williams clenched his hands as he paced
up and down the beach. He did not wish to love Hetty Gunn. He did not
approve of loving Hetty Gunn; but love her he did with the whole
strength of his soul. In this one brief hour, he had become aware of it.
What would be its result, in vain he tried to conjecture. One moment, he
said to himself that it was not in Hetty's nature to love any man; the
next moment, with a lover's inconsistency, he reproached himself for a
thought so unjust to her: one moment, he rated himself soundly for his
weakness, and told himself sternly that it was plain Hetty cared no more
for him than she did for one of her farm laborers; the next moment, he
fell into reverie full of a vague and hopeful recalling of all the kind
and familiar things she had ever done or said. The sum and substance of
his meditations was, however, that nothing should lead him to commit the
folly of asking Hetty to marry him, unless her present manner toward him
changed.

"I dare say she would laugh in my face," thought he; "I don't know but
that she would in any man's face who should ask her," and, armed and
panoplied in this resolution, Dr. Eben walked up to the spot where Hetty
sat under one of the old Balm of Gilead trees sewing, with the baby in
its cradle at her feet. It was still early morning: the Safe Haven
spires shone in the sun, and the little fishing schooners were racing
out to sea before the wind. This was one of the prettiest sights from
the beach at "The Runs." Every morning scores of little fishing vessels
came down the river, shot past like arrows, and disappeared beyond the
bar. At night they came home again slowly; sometimes with their sails
cross-set, which made them look like great white butterflies skimming
the water. Hetty never wearied of watching them: still pictures never
wholly pleased her. The things in nature which had motion, evident aim,
purpose, arrested her eye, and gave her delight.

"I haven't learned to sail a boat yet, after all," she said regret