and came over and got into my bed; and she was one
of those that never listened to reason, and it was none so easy for me,
you may suppose.

Things had gone on now for some three years, and I'd about lived in my
books,--I'd tried to teach Faith some, but she wouldn't go any farther
than newspaper stories,--when one day Dan took her and me to sail, and
we were to have had a clam-chowder on the Point, if the squall hadn't
come. As it was, we'd got to put up with chicken-broth, and it couldn't
have been better, considering who made it. It was getting on toward the
cool of the May evening, the sunset was round on the other side of the
house, but all the east looked as if the sky had been stirred up
with currant-juice, till it grew purple and dark, and then the two
light-houses flared out and showed us the lip of froth lapping the
shadowy shore beyond, and I--heard father's voice, and he came in.

There was nothing but the fire-light in the room, and it threw about
great shadows, so that at first entering all was indistinct; but I heard
a foot behind father's, and then a form appeared, and something, I never
could tell what, made a great shiver rush down my back, just as when a
creature is frightened in the dark at what you don't see, and so, though
my soul was unconscious, my body felt that there was danger in the air.
Dan had risen and lighted the lamp that swings in the chimney, and
father first of all had gone up and kissed mother, and left the stranger
standing; then he turned round, saying,--

"A tough day,--it's been a tough day; and here's some un to prove it.
Georgie, hope that pot's steam don't belie it, for Mr. Gabriel Verelay
and I want a good supper and a good bed."

At this, the stranger, still standing, bowed.

"Here's the one, father," said I. "But about the bed,--Faith'll have to
stay here,--and I don't see--unless Dan takes him over"----

"That I'll do," said Dan.

"All right," said the stranger, in a voice that you didn't seem to
notice while he was speaking, but that you remembered afterwards like
the ring of any silver thing that has been thrown down; and he dropped
his hat on the floor and drew near the fireplace, warming hands that
were slender and brown, but shapely as a woman's. I was taking up the
supper; so I only gave him a glance or two, and saw him standing there,
his left hand extended to the blaze, and his eye resting lightly and
then earnestly on Faith in her pretty sleep, and turning