nded over the cape,
as she bade him, to young Bradford's eager grasp, bowed, and turned
his steps homeward. As he strolled along, he felt a curiously sudden
change of mood, from the elation of the morning to a depression half
physical, half mental.

"I wonder," he said to himself, "if this is not another phase of my
inheritance from Dr. Jonathan. I remember the old gentleman used to
complain that his constitution was an unhappy one from birth, attended
with 'flaccid solids, sizy and scarce fluids, and a low tide of
spirits.' The description amused me in my youth; but I begin to have
an uncomfortably sympathetic sense of his state of mind and body. I
wonder, by the way, what _he_ would have done about that portrait. I
never heard that he or any other Puritan gave away his property to
any extent; and this portrait I regard as virtually mine. To be sure,
I have not paid for it; but I had fully determined to purchase it,
and--Yes, to all intents and purposes, it belongs to me. Now, to be
expected to give it up, just because I happen to hear of some one else
who wants it too, is asking a little too much. If I had avoided the
girl, as I intended, I should never have heard of her search for her
beloved great-grandmother. No, my mind is made up; I shall keep that
picture--of course I shall. I am glad I put it into the closet before
Brady came."

CHAPTER VIII

THE MARY ANN

"Our deeds are like children that are born to us:
they live and act apart from one's own will."

The weather of the morning, with its golden clearness, was too
beautiful to last. By noon the gold had paled. The high wind which had
prevailed earlier in the day subsided; but the swelling waves, which
broke with thud after thud upon the shelving beach, gave evidence of a
gale still whirling somewhere off the coast. The clear-cut lines of
the distant cliffs faded to dim, quiet masses. Far out on the horizon
rose a line of phantom hills,--a line which, as night drew in, moved
slowly shoreward, rising as it came, shutting out sail after sail,
point after point, till at last it met the land and shut out the sea
itself. There is something weird and uncanny about the approach of a
fog, stealing thus unperceived out of the heart of sunshine and blue
weather. It has in it a hint of death.

Flint felt the weight of it. His mind was shut in upon its own
resources, and did not fi