Jane Journeys On

she knew. She was the only person in the room and she had time to examine it thoroughly, even as to thickness, before Mrs. Hills came in. It happened that there were mail deliveries just before

something, rushing off like that, rousing me out of a sound sleep at six in the morning, just sa

n't

ron pocket and consulted it. "No, she's going to Maine.

mma Ellis stood behind the Irishman's chair

ank and unashamed. "You don't say! Well, he has! S

rtain type of remark. "It is rather strange.... They were out wal

ouldn't have quarreled or anything-never pa

don't you think Miss Vail has always devot

asn't afraid of anything or anybody, ever. Used to slip out and run off down Main Street after a peddler or a gypsy or anybody she took a fancy to. But-" she came back into the presen

r flooding her sallow skin, "for a man to turn his ba

nd knows I set a great store by Mr. Daragh, if he is Irish as the pigs. Never had a human being unde

the many alien hands through which it had passed, to retain a startling individuality, and she spoke in the little smoth

him than it's been for others. My land, Jane Vail could of had her choice of the town, where she comes from. There's four wanted her, to my certain knowledge, and they say Martin Wetherby (Wetherby Ridge is named for his

said Em

rmly at sight of the missive at his place. He nodded to the watching women, tore it

s. Hills, seating herself. "Going to Mai

es in their staid silks ... all the sound and sensible persons whom the missing boarder made so drab and colorless by her glowing presence. He smiled sunnily at Emma Ellis and was astonished to see tears in her light eyes, but he was used to tear

, pure and simple. You were perfectly right to wail like one of your own Banshees because the likes of me-once content when the pale shadow of Pegasus passed her by-is become an ink-spattered, carbon-grimed gold digger! Ten months ago, shivering and quivering over "One Crowded Hour," I cowered back in my semi-occasional taxicab and watched the meter with a creeping scalp.... Now I can ride f

, but I've arrived at the decent stage of gratitude, Michael Daragh. Thank you-and good-by. Shall I send you bulletins of my

e V

tmarked in Maine, often only two or three days apart, never less frequently than once a week. The boarding-house keeper had her own pleasant little

it. My land, he's as offhand about 'em as if they were

o write him constant

ously. "Jane Vail never ran after anybody yet and I don't believe she's going to begin now. He s

gh was a literary authority," said the Sett

eats me. But all I know is,

, three times, and then he tore them up, quickly, the line of his lean jaw salient. The

ose brought me to my elbow and then to the window. The little steamer was feeling her cautious way up a river of dull silver between banks of taupe and mauve. After a moment I could pick up objects here and there in somber silhouette-a windmill, a battered barn, crude landings reaching out to graze the boat. In that tremulous moment before the

ing it briskly to and fro, who may be going to take my toy steamer,-tossing a ma

oing up

take-this,-" she said,-"Oh, then do take Three Meadows!" She has been there all summer, and she thinks I can board at the same place-with Angelique Larideau Gillespie, "Mis' Deac'n Gillespie." She is Canadian-F

foot and joy o

o clumsy landings here and there and now the porter-purser-st

uck, Mich

.

eadows,

y Aft

tea here. Eating between meals is deplored and is referred to as "pi

efore he went down to consider the case of my trunk. Then it took him some time to wake up his horse, which did a bewildered Lady Macbeth up the street. I was walking beside, and suddenly a roly-poly puppy slipped away from a boy and ran straight under the clumsy hoofs.... You never heard such ki-yi's. You'd think he was being vivisected. There was a shrieking streak of white and he disappeared under a culvert. The old mare

or blacksmiths nowadays, aren't you, Michael Daragh? I love their leaping fires and their w

grimy, gentle fingers and "allowed they warn't nothin' broke ... just skairt him outer a year's growth," handed him back to the boy and went again to his horseshoe. The people pressed close with little clucks of sympathy and made the nicest fuss about it, and the boy turned out to be Daniel Gillespie and I went right on home with him and arranged to move there to-morrow-his mother desiri

ore that, Mi

ext F

on Gill

rous, well-fed, well-groomed sort, but this is indeed God's Acre. You step over the broken stones of the wall into a land of gracious gray; gray stone and moss, gray sky and feathery fog. Twice only in my vista a note of color-a low-growing lobelia, intensely blue against the foot of a new grave

ostman's horse, so I can't tell you a

d cells in my brains are coming to life again. Thanks, Michael Daragh! Do you know what M.D. stands for?-Do-er of Mira

.

es

t a real postman but he drives down for his own mail every day and "stops by" with the Gillespies'. (Not that they ever have any!) He's the old man who got down on his rusty black stomach to peek into the culvert and call "Come

derness, for he has, in addition to the unearthly sweetness in his eyes, a warmth of coloring at variance with the drained fairness of these islanders. His Canadian mother explains that,-"her that was Angerleek Larrydoo," as the

rowed and sagging with fretted years. Age and unhappiness have hardened abo

utifully chiseled old face with an eagle beak and ice-blue eyes, and he looks a

rom the family. I call it Sweet-Alice-Ben-Bolt, because it very nearly weeps with delight when you give it a smile and trembles with fear at your frown. The Deacon is

er yearns over him and says,-"But, maybe to-morrow, Dannie!" but hi

ver-gray fog in this letter,

.

ay in

know Dan'l's story. We were sitting on the toppled-over tombstone of a sturdy old patriarch who had buried four

get a let

owhere, stony broke, to whom the Deacon gave work for his board. Out of Danny's clipped phrases I could build up the rogu

outh would snap shut like a trap, but Dan'l, what with egg money and his tiny garden, and errand money from summer boarders, had gathered together twenty slow dollars, and he came lavishly forward. The rover blithely promised to pay him back in two monthly payments. He's never sent a penny. He wrote once;

azing part of it is that the boy doesn't really care about the money,-lean little Islander though he is. That is merely the symbol

rots down to the graveyard corner every day, and every day Uncle Rob

mainland and chaffed Danny about his pup and told him to play in the sun and drink plenty of milk and not to fret about school this year. I waylaid him privately and asked if there was anything

ttle Daniel in a Lion's Den of broken faith,

.