sented to the "Regular" church by Captain Zebedee Mayo,
retired whaler, swam in a sea of cloud. The lichened eaves of the little
"Come-Outer" chapel dripped at sedate intervals. The brick walk leading
to the door of Captain Elkanah Daniels's fine residence held undignified
puddles in its hollows. And, through the damp stillness, the muttered
growl of the surf, three miles away at the foot of the sandy bluffs by
the lighthouse, sounded ominously.

Directly opposite Captain Elkanah's front gate, on the other side of the
main road, stood the little story-and-a-half house, also the captain's
property, which for fourteen years had been tenanted by Mrs. Keziah
Coffin and her brother, Solomon Hall, the shoemaker. But Solomon had,
the month before, given up his fight with debt and illness and was
sleeping quietly in Trumet's most populous center, the graveyard. And
Keziah, left alone, had decided that the rent and living expenses were
more than her precarious earnings as a seamstress would warrant, and,
having bargained with the furniture dealer in Wellmouth for the sale of
her household effects, was now busy getting them ready for the morrow,
when the dealer's wagon was to call. She was going to Boston, where a
distant and condescending rich relative had interested himself to the
extent of finding her a place as sewing woman in a large tailoring
establishment.

The fog hung like a wet blanket over the house and its small yard, where
a few venerable pear trees, too conservative in their old age to venture
a bud even though it was almost May, stood bare and forlorn. The day was
dismal. The dismantled dining room, its tables and chairs pushed into a
corner, and its faded ingrain carpet partially stripped from the floor,
was dismal, likewise. Considering all things, one might have expected
Keziah herself to be even more dismal. But, to all outward appearances,
she was not. A large portion of her thirty-nine years of life had been
passed under a wet blanket, so to speak, and she had not permitted
the depressing covering to shut out more sunshine than was absolutely
necessary. "If you can't get cream, you might as well learn to love your
sasser of skim milk," said practical Keziah.

She was on her knees, her calico dress sleeves, patched and darned, but
absolutely clean, rolled back, uncovering a pair of plump, strong arms,
a saucer of tacks before her, and a tack hammer with a claw head in
her hand. She was taking up the carpet.