am going to
take you straight to 'Sconset to the Whistling Sally and keep you there
for a month."

"The Whistling Sally" was the Admiral's refuge when he was tired of the
world. It was a gray little house set among other gray little houses
across the island from Nantucket town. It stood on top of the bluff and
overlooked a sea which stretched straight to Spain. It was called "The
Whistling Sally" because a ship's figure-head graced its front yard, the
buxom half of a young woman who blew out her cheeks in a perpetual
piping, and whose faded colors spoke eloquently of the storms which had
buffeted her.

The Admiral, as has been indicated, had an imposing mansion in Nantucket
town. For two months in the summer he entertained his friends in all the
glory of a Colonial background--white pillars, spiral stairway, polished
floors, Chinese Chippendale, lacquered cabinets, old china and oil
portraits. He gave dinners and played golf, he had a yacht and a motor
boat, he danced when the spirit moved him, and was light on his feet in
spite of his years. He was adored by the ladies, lionized by everybody,
and liked it.

But when the summer was over and September came, he went to Siasconset
and reverted to the type of his ancestors. He hobnobbed with the men and
women who had been the friends and neighbors of his forbears. He doffed
his sophistication as he doffed his formal clothes. He wore a slicker on
wet days, and the rain dripped from his rubber hat. He sat knee to knee
with certain cronies around the town pump. He made chowder after a
famous recipe, and dug clams when the spirit moved him.

His housekeeper, Jane, adjourned from the town house to "The Whistling
Sally" when Becky was there; at other times the Admiral did for himself,
keeping the little cottage as neat as a pin, and cooking as if he were
born to it.

It seemed to Becky that as the long low island rose from the sea, the
burdens which she had carried for so long dropped from her. There were
the houses on the cliff, the glint of a gilded dome, and then, gray and
blue and green the old town showed against the skyline, resolving itself
presently into roofs, and church towers, and patches of trees, with long
piers stretching out through shallow waters, boat-houses, fishing
smacks, and at last a thin line of people waiting on the wharf.

The air was like wine. The sky was blue with the deep sapphire which
follows a wind-swept night. There was not a hint of mist o