he contrary, he
was apt to see the pleasant side of the people with whom he was thrown.
He took no trouble to penetrate, it was not a deep view; probably it was
a superficial one. But it was a question--so some of his friends had
thought--whether this was not better than the strict watch, the sadly
satisfactory search for faults in the circle of their own families and
acquaintances, which many conscientious people keep up all their lives.

A day or two after his midnight musings on the beach, Evert Winthrop was
coming down Pacheco Lane towards the eyrie when he heard, in a long,
sweet, distant note, "Good-by." It came from the water. But at first he
could not place it; there were two or three fishermen's boats passing,
but the fishermen of Gracias were not in the habit of calling "good-by"
in clear English accents to each other; their English was by no means
clear, it was mixed with Spanish and West Indian, with words borrowed
from the not remote African of the Florida negro, and even with some
from the native Indian tongues; it was a very patchwork of languages.
Again came the note, and Winthrop, going forward to the edge of the low
bank, looked over the water. The course of one of the boats, the
smallest, had brought it nearer, and he now recognized Lucian Spenser in
the stern, holding the sail-rope and steering, and Garda Thorne, facing
him, seated in the bottom of the boat. Garda waved her hand, and called
again "Good-by." They glided past him, and he raised his hat, but did
not attempt conversation across the water; in a few minutes more Lucian
had tacked, and the boat turned eastward down the harbor, the sail,
which had swung round, now hiding their figures from his view. Winthrop
left the bank, crossed the green-carpeted lane, and went up the outside
stairway to the eyrie's drawing-room. It was inhabited at present by
tea-leaves. Celestine, loathing, as Minerva Poindexter, the desultory
methods of Cindy, the colored girl who was supposed to act as
parlor-maid, was in the habit of banishing her at intervals from the
scene, and engaging personally in an encounter with the dust according
to her own system. The system of Celestine was deep and complicated,
beginning with the pinning of a towel tightly over her entire head in a
compact cap-like fashion of much austerity, followed, as second stage,
by an elaborate arrangement of tea-leaves upon the carpet, and
ending--but no one knew where it ended, no one had ever gone