his mother's. She was well aware of
her social inferiority; but--the truth may be told--she chose to forget
it that morning, and to wonder what this young man would be like as a
husband. She had looked up into his face during sermon time, devouring
his boyish features, noticing his refined accent, marking every gesture.
Certainly he was comely and desirable. As he walked down the hill by
Deacon Snowden's side, she was perfectly conscious of the longing in her
heart, but prepared to put a stop to it, and go home to dinner as soon
as he had turned the corner and passed out of sight. Then came that
unhappy remark about the crab-pots. She bit her lip for a moment,
turned, and walked slowly off towards the ferry, full of thought.

Three weeks after, the Rev. Samuel Bax received his call.

He arrived, to assume his duties, in the waning light of a soft January
day. Boutigo's van set him down, with a carpet-bag, band-box, and chest
of books, at the door of the lodgings which Deacon Snowden had taken for
him. The house stood in the North Street, as it is called. It was a
small, yellow-washed building, containing just half-a-dozen rooms, and
of these the two set apart for the minister looked straight upon the
harbour. Under his sitting-room window was a little garden, and at the
end of the garden a low wall with a stretch of water beyond it, and a
barque that lay at anchor but a stone's throw away, as it seemed, its
masts stretching high against the misty hillside. A green-painted door
was let into the garden wall--a door with two flaps, the upper of which
stood open; and through this opening he caught another glimpse of grey
water.

The landlady, who showed him into this room, and at once began to
explain that the furniture was better than it looked, was hardly
prepared for the rapture with which he stared out of the window.
His boyhood had been spent in a sooty Lancashire town, and to him the
green garden, the quay-door, the barque, and the stilly water, seemed to
fall little short of Paradise.

"I reckoned you'd like it," she said. "An' to be sure, 'tis a blessing
you do."

He turned his stare upon her for a moment. She was a benign-looking
woman of about fifty, in a short-skirted grey gown and widow's cap.

"Why do you say that?"

"Because, leavin' out the kitchen, there's but four rooms, two for you
an' two for me; two facin' the harbour, an' two facin' the street. Now,
if you'd took a dislike to thi