her to be present at the
Custom-House at Newport on a certain day in 1869. She accepted the
invitation, and went at the appointed hour without much thought about
the matter. When she reached the Custom-House, to her surprise a
committee of prominent Newport residents met her and escorted her to a
seat on the platform, from which she looked down on a vast audience,
all staring with evident curiosity at the slight, dark-haired woman in
whose honor the throng had come together. There were speeches so
filled with praise of her deeds that Ida Lewis would have liked to fly
from the sight of the applauding crowd; but instead must sit and
listen. The speeches at an end, there was a moment's pause; then she
found herself on her feet, amid a chorus of cheers, being presented
with a magnificent new life-boat, the _Rescue_, a gift from the
citizens of Newport as a slight recognition of her acts of bravery.

Ida never knew all she said in response to the presentation speech;
she only knew that tears streamed down her cheeks as she gripped a
man's hand and said, "Thank you, thank you--I don't deserve it!" over
and over again, while the audience stood up and applauded to the echo.
As if that were not enough to overcome any young woman, as she left
the building, James Fisk, Jr., approached her and, grasping her hand
warmly, told her that there was to be a new boat-house built back of
the light, large enough for her beautiful new boat.

It was late that night before Ida fell asleep, lulled at last by the
wind and the lapping of the waves, and thinking with intense happiness
not of her own achievements, but of the pride and joy with which her
mother received the account of her daughter's ovation and gift, and
her words rang in Ida's ears above the noise of the waters, "Your
father would be so proud, dear!"

For fifty-three years Ida Lewis remained the faithful keeper of her
beloved light, and because of her healthy, out-of-door life we catch a
glimpse of the woman of sixty-five which reminds us strongly of the
girl who led the way to the lighthouse point on that day in 1841, to
show her new home to her schoolmates. In the face of howling winds and
winter gales she had snatched twenty-three lives from the jaws of
death, and in her sixty-fifth year she was at her old work.

A woman had rowed out to the light from Newport, and when her boat had
almost reached the pier which had been erected recently on the island
shore, she rashly stoo