like Somebody and she
said something the other day about how lovely the autumns were on the
Island, as though she took it for granted I'd be here then!

"Claire, what if I can _never_ get away? Did I dream, when I took
Anne's shoes (to speak in figures) and put them on, where they'd lead
me? And sometimes I think that I will not see the end of the trail for
a long time. I'm not crazy to see it, either, for it _must_ end in
Disaster!

"I am beginning to understand these people, too. I--in my usual way,
judged them too quickly! One must know their history to know
them--know what a splendid background they have. Aunt Sabrina has
taken up Ezekiel where she left off and tells me stories about the
Champlain Valley. Of course, I know she is doing it, because I called
the Leavitt glories 'tommy-rot' and when I read, in B'lindy's book
(gotten up, of course, to bait tourists) what these Islanders _have_
done, I feel cheap and small and insignificant beside all these people
who have such heroic grandfathers and great grandfathers.

"I suppose, all over the world, Island people must be different from
people whose lands lie directly contingent with other lands and people.
The very waters that shut away these precious Hero Islands wash their
lives back upon themselves--they live in--they can't help it. The
world that rushes on so fast for us, living in the big cities, scarcely
stirs them here! These folks talk about Ethan Allen and Remembrance
Baker as though it was only yesterday they walked down under the elms
of the village street! They all eat off from very old china and sit in
very old chairs--precious because some hero dear to the Island has sat
in them!

"(All of this is not original with me--The Hired Man said it.)

"So just as I finished grandly saying to Aunt Sabrina that it didn't
matter at _all_ what the people, who are dead and gone, have done, I'm
beginning to see--like a picture opened before my eyes--that it _does_
matter--quite a little! They, these dead and gone people, leave us
what they have done; if it's bad, we have to pay for it, some way or
other--if it's noble, we have to be worthy of it! _That_ philosophy is
all mine and not the Hired Man's.

"There are a great many things about the aforesaid Hired Man (I never
think of him as that) that perplex me. He is a great big riddle. He
is more interesting than any one I ever met before. I wish you were
here so we could talk him over the way we