nge, and knew in her heart
that Aleck had won the day, though she still treated their engagement
as an open question. Aleck would read to her in his simple, unaffected
manner, sometimes with Madame Reynier and Mr. Chamberlain also for
audience, sometimes to her alone. And since they lived keenly and
loved, all books spoke to them of their life or their love. A line, a
phrase, a thought, would ring out of the record, and each would be glad
that the other had heard that thought; sometime they would talk it all
over. They learned to laugh at their own whimsical prejudices, and
then insisted on them all the harder; they learned, each from the
other, some bit of robust optimism, some happiness of vision, some
further reach of thought.

After they had read, they would play at quoits, struggling sternly
against each other; or Chamberlain would examine Melanie in nautical
lore; or together, in the evening, they would trace the constellations
in the heavens. During their first week they were in the edge of a
storm for a night and a day; but they put into harbor where they were
comfortable and safe, and merry as larks through it all.

So, day by day, Aleck hedged Melanie about with his love. Was she
thoughtful? He let her take, as she would, his thoughts, the best he
could give from his mature experience. Was she gay? He liked that
even better, and delighted to cap her gaiety with his own queer,
whimsical drolleries. Whatever her mood, he would not let her get far
from him in spirit. It was not in her heart to keep him from her; but
Aleck achieved the supermundane feat of making his influence felt most
keenly when she was alone. She dwelt upon him in her thoughts more
intensely than she herself knew; and that intenseness was only the
reflection of his own thought for her.

They had been sailing a little more than a week, changing the low,
placid Connecticut fields for the rougher northern shores, going
sometimes farther out to sea, but delighting most in the sweet,
pine-fringed coast of Maine. There were no more large cities to visit,
only small villages where fishermen gathered after their week's haul or
where slow, primitive boat-building was still carried on. Most of the
inhabitants of the coast country appeared to be farmers as well as
fishermen, even where the soil was least promising. The aspect of the
shores was that of a limited but fairly prosperous agricultural
community. Under the shadow of the hills