. Miss
Daniels gushed and enthused as she always did. As they drove by the
Corners the minister, who had been replying absently to Annabel's
questions, suddenly stopped short in the middle of a sentence. His
companion, leaning forward to look out of the window, saw Grace Van
Horne entering the store. For an instant Annabel's face wore a very
unpleasant expression. Then she smiled and said, in her sweetest manner:

"Why, there's the tavern girl! I haven't seen her for sometime. How old
she looks! I suppose her uncle's death has aged her. Well, she'll
be married soon, just as soon as Cap'n Nat gets back. They perfectly
worship each other, those two. They say she writes him the longest
letters. Hannah Poundberry told me. Hannah's a queer creature and
common, but devoted to the Hammonds, Mr. Ellery. However, you're not
interested in Come-Outers, are you? Ha, ha!"

Ellery made some sort of an answer, but he could not have told what it
was. The sight of Grace had brought back all that he was trying so
hard to forget. Why couldn't one forget, when it was so painful--and so
useless--to remember?

Spring once more; then summer. And now people were again speaking of
Captain Nat Hammond. His ship was overdue, long overdue. Even in those
days, when there were no cables and the telegraph was still something of
a novelty, word of his arrival should have reached Trumet months before
this. But it had not come, and did not. Before the summer was over, the
wise heads of the retired skippers were shaking dubiously. Something had
happened to the Sea Mist, something serious.

As the weeks and months went by without news of the missing vessel,
this belief became almost a certainty. At the Come-Outer chapel, where
Ezekiel Bassett now presided, prayers were offered for the son of their
former leader. These prayers were not as fervent as they might have
been, for Grace's nonattendance at meetings was causing much comment
and a good deal of resentment. She came occasionally, but not often. "I
always said she was stuck-up and thought she was too good for the rest
of us," remarked "Sukey B." spitefully. "'And, between you and me, pa
says he thinks Nat Hammond would be one to uphold her in it. He wa'n't a
bit spirituous and never experienced religion. If anything HAS happened
to him, it's a punishment sent, that's what pa thinks."

Those were gloomy days at the parsonage. Keziah said little concerning
the topic of which all the village was tal