king off to sea,
and watching for the boat to come in sight. I could see Green Island,
small and darkly wooded at that distance; below me were the houses of
the village with their apple-trees and bits of garden ground. Presently,
as I looked at the pastures beyond, I caught a last glimpse of Mrs. Todd
herself, walking slowly in the footpath that led along, following
the shore toward the Port. At such a distance one can feel the large,
positive qualities that control a character. Close at hand, Mrs.
Todd seemed able and warm-hearted and quite absorbed in her bustling
industries, but her distant figure looked mateless and appealing, with
something about it that was strangely self-possessed and mysterious. Now
and then she stooped to pick something,--it might have been her favorite
pennyroyal,--and at last I lost sight of her as she slowly crossed an
open space on one of the higher points of land, and disappeared again
behind a dark clump of juniper and the pointed firs.

As I came away on the little coastwise steamer, there was an old sea
running which made the surf leap high on all the rocky shores. I stood
on deck, looking back, and watched the busy gulls agree and turn, and
sway together down the long slopes of air, then separate hastily and
plunge into the waves. The tide was setting in, and plenty of small fish
were coming with it, unconscious of the silver flashing of the great
birds overhead and the quickness of their fierce beaks. The sea was
full of life and spirit, the tops of the waves flew back as if they were
winged like the gulls themselves, and like them had the freedom of the
wind. Out in the main channel we passed a bent-shouldered old fisherman
bound for the evening round among his lobster traps. He was toiling
along with short oars, and the dory tossed and sank and tossed again
with the steamer's waves. I saw that it was old Elijah Tilley, and
though we had so long been strangers we had come to be warm friends, and
I wished that he had waited for one of his mates, it was such hard work
to row along shore through rough seas and tend the traps alone. As we
passed I waved my hand and tried to call to him, and he looked up and
answered my farewells by a solemn nod. The little town, with the tall
masts of its disabled schooners in the inner bay, stood high above the
flat sea for a few minutes then it sank back into the uniformity of the
coast, and became indistinguishable from the other towns that looked as