e was a
schooner with all sails set coming down the bay from a white village
that was sprinkled on the shore, and there were many sailboats flitting
about it. It was a noble landscape, and my eyes, which had grown used to
the narrow inspection of a shaded roadside, could hardly take it in.

"Why, it's the upper bay," said Mrs. Todd. "You can see 'way over into
the town of Fessenden. Those farms 'way over there are all in Fessenden.
Mother used to have a sister that lived up that shore. If we started as
early's we could on a summer mornin', we couldn't get to her place from
Green Island till late afternoon, even with a fair, steady breeze, and
you had to strike the time just right so as to fetch up 'long o' the
tide and land near the flood. 'Twas ticklish business, an' we didn't
visit back an' forth as much as mother desired. You have to go 'way down
the co'st to Cold Spring Light an' round that long point,--up here's
what they call the Back Shore."

"No, we were 'most always separated, my dear sister and me, after the
first year she was married," said Mrs. Blackett. "We had our little
families an' plenty o' cares. We were always lookin' forward to the time
we could see each other more. Now and then she'd get out to the island
for a few days while her husband'd go fishin'; and once he stopped with
her an' two children, and made him some flakes right there and cured all
his fish for winter. We did have a beautiful time together, sister an'
me; she used to look back to it long's she lived.

"I do love to look over there where she used to live," Mrs. Blackett
went on as we began to go down the hill. "It seems as if she must still
be there, though she's long been gone. She loved their farm,--she didn't
see how I got so used to our island; but somehow I was always happy from
the first."

"Yes, it's very dull to me up among those slow farms," declared Mrs.
Todd. "The snow troubles 'em in winter. They're all besieged by winter,
as you may say; 'tis far better by the shore than up among such places.
I never thought I should like to live up country."

"Why, just see the carriages ahead of us on the next rise!" exclaimed
Mrs. Blackett. "There's going to be a great gathering, don't you believe
there is, Almiry? It hasn't seemed up to now as if anybody was going but
us. An' 'tis such a beautiful day, with yesterday cool and pleasant to
work an' get ready, I shouldn't wonder if everybody was there, even the
slow ones like Phebe