. I wonder--" drearily, "I wonder how it will seem when I
ain't got any pains, nor any tears, an' when there ain't any more black
nights to think about them in? I'll feel terrible lost just at first. It
will be about as hard fur me t' get use t' doin' without them, as it
will fur William Henry t' do without the sea. I guess we'll all have
considerable t' do t' learn t' get along without the former things,
whatever they was. Maybe some of the joy will be in learnin' all over.
Janet, I'm powerful sodden with weariness. Weariness is one of the
former things!" A whimsical humor stirred the words. "Sometimes the
former things get t' be dreadful foolish day after day."

"Let me carry you to the bedroom, Susan." Janet had assumed this duty in
order to spare David, the nights he must go up aloft. The thin, light
body was no burden to the sturdy girl.

"There, Susan, and see the storm is past!" The evening glow was shining
in the bedroom window. "And I will undress you, just as easy as easy can
be, and put you so, upon the cool bed! The shower has cleared the air
beautifully. Now are you comfortable, Susan Jane?"

"I'm more comfortable than what I've been fur a time past. Leave the
shade up t' the top, Janet; I like to see the gleam of Davy's Light when
it is dark. I like t' think how it helps folks find their way to the
harbors where they would be. Janet, that was a terrible queer thing you
said about the face in the wave."

The girl was folding the daily garments of the tired woman and placing
them where David's bungling hands could find them for another day's
service.

"What was that, Susan Jane?" She stood in the fair full light of the
parting day.

"About it not being a dead face! That's been the horror of it, all these
years; it has always been a dead an' gone face! That's why I hated the
sea. But if"--and a radiance spread over the thin, wasted features--"if
it should be that William Henry came back t' me, alive an' smilin' as he
always did, why, like as not, I'd put my arms out--" then she paused and
the voice broke; "no, I could not put my arms out--but I could smile
like I've most forgotten how t' do, an' I could go with William Henry,
anywhere, same as any other lovin' woman! I never thought about his face
bein' alive in the wave! But, do you know, it's a real pleasant idee,
that of seein' the sea again an' William Henry a-smilin' an' wavin' his
arms like he use t' when he was bathin'! I declare it's a real grat