, the blue and flash and fathomless depths of her
eyes. I remembered the sunlight and freshening breeze upon the hills,
the chirp and gentle stirring of the day, the azure sea and far-off,
tender mist, the playful breakers, flinging spray high into the yellow
sunshine. 'Twas no time now, thought I, to be busied with craft in the
gloomy cabin of the _Shining Light_, which was all well enough in its
way; 'twas a time to be abroad in the sunlit wind. And I sighed: not
knowing what ailed me, but yet uneasy and most melancholy. The world
was an ill place for a lad to be (thinks I), and all the labor of it a
vanity....

* * * * *

Now the afternoon was near spent. My hands were idle--my eyes and
heart far astray from the labor of the time. It was very still and
dreamful in the cabin. The chinks were red with the outer glow, and a
stream of mote-laden sunlight, aslant, came in at the companionway.

It fell upon Judith.

"Judy," I whispered, bending close, "I 'low I might as well--might as
well have--"

She looked up in affright.

"Have a kiss," said I.

"Oh no!" she gasped.

"Why not? Sure I'm able for it!"

"Ay," she answered, in her wisdom yielding this; "but, Dannie, child,
'tisn't _'lowed_."

"Why not?"

Her eyes turned round with religious awe. "God," said she, with a
solemn wag, "wouldn't like it."

"I'd never stop for that."

"May be," she chided; "but I 'low, lad, we ought t' 'blige Un once in
a while. 'Tis no more than kind. An' what's a kiss t' lack? Pooh!"

I was huffed.

"Ah, well, then!" said she, "an your heart's set on it, Dannie, I've
no mind t' stop you. But--"

I moved forward, abashed, but determined.

"But," she continued, with an emphasis that brought me to a stop, "I
'low I better ask God, t' make sure."

'Twas the way she had in emergencies.

"Do," said I, dolefully.

The God of the lad that was I--the God of his childish vision, when,
in the darkness of night, he lifted his eyes in prayer, seeking the
leading of a Shepherd--was a forbidding God: white, gigantic, in the
shape of an old, old man, the Ancient of Days, in a flowing robe,
seated scowling upon a throne, aloft on a rolling cloud, with an awful
mist of darkness all roundabout. But Judith, as I knew, visualized in
a more felicitous way. The God to whom she appealed was a rotund,
florid old gentleman, with the briefest, most wiry of sandy whiskers
upon his chops, a jolly doubl