s."

"Then look back of you," she suggested.

Behind us, at the tip of Manhattan, the tall buildings had all melted
together into one tremendous mass, with only a pin point of light here
and there, a place of shadowy turrets and walls, like some mediaeval
fortress. Out of it, in contrast to its dimness, rose a garish tower of
lights that seemed to be keeping a vigilant watch over all the dark
waters, the ships and the docks. The harbor of big companies.

"My father works up in that tower," she said. "He can see the whole
harbor spread out below. But he keeps coming down to see it all close,
and I've steered him up close to everything in it. You've no idea how
much there is." She threw me a glance of pitying scorn. "There are over
seven hundred miles of waterfront in this small port, and I'm not going
to have you trudging around and getting lost and tired and cross and
working off your grudge in your writing. You come with me some afternoon
and I'll do what I can to open your eyes."

"Please do it," I said quickly.

* * * * *

She took me down, to the sea gate at the end of a warm, still, foggy
day. There in the deepening twilight we drifted without a sign of a
world around us--till in from the ocean there came a deep billow, then
another and another, and as our small craft darted off to one side a
gigantic gray shadow loomed through the fog with four black towers of
smoke overhead, lights gleaming from a thousand eyes.

"Another sea hog," murmured a voice.

"I said in the daytime," I replied.

We went out on another afternoon to watch the fisherman fleets at their
work or scudding before a strong wind home with a great, round, radiant
sun behind. She showed me fishers in the air, lonely fish hawks one by
one flying in the late afternoon back to their nests on the Atlantic
Highlands. And far out on the Lower Bay she knew where to stir up whole
armies of gulls, till there seemed to be thousands wheeling in air with
the bright sunshine on all the wings. The sunshine, too, with the help
of the breeze, stole glinting deep into her hair. She watched me out of
half-closed eyes.

"Is this daylight enough?" she demanded.

"This is simply absurd," I answered. "You know very well that this
harbor is ugly in places----"

"Only in places. That's better," she said.

"In a great _many_ places," I rejoined. "Please take me to Bayonne some
day--at two p. m.," I added.

It seemed a good, s