t the channel trembled and flashed
against the opal sky, and far out, beyond the golden sand-dunes of the
bar, was the crinkled gray ribbon of a passing steamer's smoke.

"There, isn't that view worth looking at?" said old Abel, with a
loving, proprietary pride. "You don't have to pay anything for it,
either. All that sea and sky free--'without money and without price'.
Let's sit down here in the hop-vine arbour, master. There'll be a
moonrise presently. I'm never tired of finding out what a moonrise
sheen can be like over that sea. There's a surprise in it every time.
Now, master, you're getting your mouth in the proper shape to talk
business--but don't you do it. Nobody should talk business when he's
expecting a moonrise. Not that I like talking business at any time."

"Unfortunately it has to be talked of sometimes, Mr. Armstrong," I
said.

"Yes, it seems to be a necessary evil, master," he acknowledged. "But
I know what business you've come upon, and we can settle it in five
minutes after the moon's well up. I'll just agree to everything you
and the other two trustees want. Lord knows why they ever put me on
the school board. Maybe it's because I'm so ornamental. They wanted
one good-looking man, I reckon."

His low chuckle, so full of mirth and so free from malice, was
infectious. I laughed also, as I sat down in the hop-vine arbour.

"Now, you needn't talk if you don't want to," he said. "And I won't.
We'll just sit here, sociable like, and if we think of anything worth
while to say we'll say it. Otherwise, not. If you can sit in silence
with a person for half an hour and feel comfortable, you and that
person can be friends. If you can't, friends you'll never be, and you
needn't waste time in trying."

Abel and I passed successfully the test of silence that evening in the
hop-vine arbour. I was strangely content to sit and think--something I
had not cared to do lately. A peace, long unknown to my stormy soul,
seemed hovering near it. The garden was steeped in it; old Abel's
personality radiated it. I looked about me and wondered whence came
the charm of that tangled, unworldly spot.

"Nice and far from the market-place isn't it?" asked Abel suddenly,
as if he had heard my unasked question. "No buying and selling and
getting gain here. Nothing was ever sold out of _this_ garden. Tamzine
has her vegetable plot over yonder, but what we don't eat we give
away. Geordie Marr down the harbour has a big garden lik