e as happy as the first bride was who came here. I can't wish you no
better than THAT. But your husband doesn't introduce me jest exactly
right. 'Captain Jim' is my week-a-day name and you might as well begin
as you're sartain to end up--calling me that. You sartainly are a nice
little bride, Mistress Blythe. Looking at you sorter makes me feel
that I've jest been married myself."

Amid the laughter that followed Mrs. Doctor Dave urged Captain Jim to
stay and have supper with them.

"Thank you kindly. 'Twill be a real treat, Mistress Doctor. I mostly
has to eat my meals alone, with the reflection of my ugly old phiz in a
looking-glass opposite for company. 'Tisn't often I have a chance to
sit down with two such sweet, purty ladies."

Captain Jim's compliments may look very bald on paper, but he paid them
with such a gracious, gentle deference of tone and look that the woman
upon whom they were bestowed felt that she was being offered a queen's
tribute in a kingly fashion.

Captain Jim was a high-souled, simple-minded old man, with eternal
youth in his eyes and heart. He had a tall, rather ungainly figure,
somewhat stooped, yet suggestive of great strength and endurance; a
clean-shaven face deeply lined and bronzed; a thick mane of iron-gray
hair falling quite to his shoulders, and a pair of remarkably blue,
deep-set eyes, which sometimes twinkled and sometimes dreamed, and
sometimes looked out seaward with a wistful quest in them, as of one
seeking something precious and lost. Anne was to learn one day what it
was for which Captain Jim looked.

It could not be denied that Captain Jim was a homely man. His spare
jaws, rugged mouth, and square brow were not fashioned on the lines of
beauty; and he had passed through many hardships and sorrows which had
marked his body as well as his soul; but though at first sight Anne
thought him plain she never thought anything more about it--the spirit
shining through that rugged tenement beautified it so wholly.

They gathered gaily around the supper table. The hearth fire banished
the chill of the September evening, but the window of the dining room
was open and sea breezes entered at their own sweet will. The view was
magnificent, taking in the harbor and the sweep of low, purple hills
beyond. The table was heaped with Mrs. Doctor's delicacies but the
piece de resistance was undoubtedly the big platter of sea trout.

"Thought they'd be sorter tasty after travell