e.

I sat me down with a smile: that strange and swift period of passage is
still fresh in my memory; how the wind, aided by some slimy intervening
objects, turned me completely about, so that I bounded at last with
affectionate violence, back foremost, into the enfolding arms of my
friends below; cheered, too, from the wharf, especially as, not having
been able to make so judicious an arrangement of my earthly vestments
as Mrs. Kobbe and Miss Pray had done, I was now a startlingly marked
object of ridicule.

Little cared we. That adventure down the slip, ignominious though it
was, had put fire into my heart. I entered eagerly into the captain's
scheme of hauling and rifling the Millport lobster-traps, in the
convenient fog which, as if sent by heaven, hid us for a little space
from the land. The blood of ancestral pirates and robbers bounded
hilariously once more in my long-easeful, sluggish veins.

The floor of our boat was covered with bright sea-spoils, the fog
lifted, the wind blew fair and strong. Hungry eternally, we munched
our stolen fried cakes with delight.

The sun set in a spendthrift glory of state and color, the water was as
if translated to celestial climes, languidly the fair moon arose.

And I--forever Vesty's face, in some dream of youth and happiness,
outlying my estate; pictured, apart from me, yet new-creating me with
joy. Afar off in earth-meadows, the love-note of the thrush--not for
me, yet passing dear and sweet. That slender, languorous moon pointed
me to humble village spires and grass-grown paths, pale lovers
whispering at a rustic gate. I, poor sprite, stooped down and loved
and blessed them, though I sped away to sail forever and forever on the
seas!

XVIII

UNCLE BENNY SAILS AWAY TO GALILEE

Say the philosophers how, to the properly sane mind, there is no
sorrow. But Vesty, only a Basin, fighting Christ's war against the
flesh--Vesty had sorrow.

"It was," she confessed to me alone, I being as a ghost or
confessor--"it was like pulling my heart out, to have Notely go away
so. It was like taking little Gurd away--but it was the only way."

"He has gone back to his wife?"

"Yes." Vesty shivered. I had chanced to meet her in the lane, and the
wind was chill.

"And what are you going to do, Vesty?"

"I am going where they want me to help." She held the thin, frayed
shawl at her neck, the rosy child wrapped as usual on her arm: "there
is always some one want