een once, and seemed to class him
with her other secrets. He might have belonged with a simple which grew
in a certain slug-haunted corner of the garden, whose use she could
never be betrayed into telling me, though I saw her cutting the tops
by moonlight once, as if it were a charm, and not a medicine, like the
great fading bloodroot leaves.

I could see that she was trying to keep pace with the old captain's
lighter steps. He looked like an aged grasshopper of some strange human
variety. Behind this pair was a short, impatient, little person, who
kept the captain's house, and gave it what Mrs. Todd and others believed
to be no proper sort of care. She was usually called "that Mari' Harris"
in subdued conversation between intimates, but they treated her with
anxious civility when they met her face to face.

The bay-sheltered islands and the great sea beyond stretched away to
the far horizon southward and eastward; the little procession in the
foreground looked futile and helpless on the edge of the rocky shore. It
was a glorious day early in July, with a clear, high sky; there were no
clouds, there was no noise of the sea. The song sparrows sang and sang,
as if with joyous knowledge of immortality, and contempt for those who
could so pettily concern themselves with death. I stood watching until
the funeral procession had crept round a shoulder of the slope below and
disappeared from the great landscape as if it had gone into a cave.

An hour later I was busy at my work. Now and then a bee blundered in and
took me for an enemy; but there was a useful stick upon the teacher's
desk, and I rapped to call the bees to order as if they were unruly
scholars, or waved them away from their riots over the ink, which I had
bought at the Landing store, and discovered to be scented with bergamot,
as if to refresh the labors of anxious scribes. One anxious scribe
felt very dull that day; a sheep-bell tinkled near by, and called her
wandering wits after it. The sentences failed to catch these lovely
summer cadences. For the first time I began to wish for a companion
and for news from the outer world, which had been, half unconsciously,
forgotten. Watching the funeral gave one a sort of pain. I began to
wonder if I ought not to have walked with the rest, instead of hurrying
away at the end of the services. Perhaps the Sunday gown I had put on
for the occasion was making this disastrous change of feeling, but I had
now made myself and