ime, she would forget her reserve in great joy, and low,
pleased laughter would jet from her throat.... And if he were on time,
there would be the quiet grave confidence: "I knew your step!" ... And
if he were late, there would be the passing of the cloud from the brows:
"Thank God! I--I was--just a trifle worried!" ... And the greetings
over, she would look at him with a smile and a little lift of the
eyebrows, and he would give her what he had brought from the voyage: a
ring from Amsterdam, maybe, where the great jewelers are, or heavy
silken stockings of France; or had he gone to the West Indies, a great
necklet of red coral; or some fancy in humming-birds' feathers from the
Brazils; lace from Porto Rico, that the colored women make with their
slim brown fingers; things of hammered brass from India; and were he to
China in the tea-trade, a coat such as a mandarin's lady would wear....
And with each gift there would be gasp of incredulous surprise, and "O
Shaneen, you shouldn't have!" ... And then the evening would come, and
they would stand on the threshold, and he would listen to the sounds the
seamen never hear: the swish and ripple of the wind among the trees, the
birds settling themselves to sleep amid the boughs, the bittern that
boomed like a horn, and the barking of a distant dog, and the crickets
that do be singing when the evening falls.... And he would turn from
that to find her arms out and her lips apart, who could wait no longer,
and together they would go into their house, where the red turf had
turned yellow--together, over their own threshold, into their own
house.... And when the time came for him to go to sea again, she would
be grave with unshed tears and a brave smile.... And one day after a
long voyage, when she had greeted him, she would say, "Some one has come
to our house!" and he wouldn't understand, and be annoyed, until she
showed him the little warm head in the cradle, and he would drop on his
knees reverentially, and there would be great silent tears from him,
and all her heart would show in her quiet smile....

And never an old woman on Naples quay would ask him for an alms but
would get it, he thinking all the time of the old woman with the
tow-like hair who abode in his house, his wife's mother. And she would
be comfortable there in her old days, with always a fire to warm her,
and always a cup of tea to cheer her up, and a kindly ear for her
stories of ancient days, and a thanks for th