Deephaven | Page 4

be in her mother's day."

"Then you live in Deephaven too?" asked Kate.
"I've been here the better part of my life. I was raised up among the
hills in Vermont, and I shall always be a real up-country woman if I
live here a hundred years. The sea doesn't come natural to me, it kind of
worries me, though you won't find a happier woman than I be, 'long
shore. When I was first married 'he' had a schooner and went to the
banks, and once he was off on a whaling voyage, and I hope I may
never come to so long a three years as those were again, though I was
up to mother's. Before I was married he had been 'most everywhere.
When he came home that time from whaling, he found I'd taken it so to
heart that he said he'd never go off again, and then he got the chance to
keep Deephaven Light, and we've lived there seventeen years come
January. There isn't great pay, but then nobody tries to get it away from
us, and we've got so's to be contented, if it is lonesome in winter."
"Do you really live in the lighthouse? I remember how I used to beg to
be taken out there when I was a child, and how I used to watch for the
light at night," said Kate, enthusiastically.
So began a friendship which we both still treasure, for knowing Mrs.
Kew was one of the pleasantest things which happened to us in that
delightful summer, and she used to do so much for our pleasure, and
was so good to us. When we went out to the lighthouse for the last time
to say good by, we were very sorry girls indeed. We had no idea until
then how much she cared for us, and her affection touched us very
much. She told us that she loved us as if we belonged to her, and
begged us not to forget her,--as if we ever could!--and to remember that
there was always a home and a warm heart for us if she were alive.
Kate and I have often agreed that few of our acquaintances are half so
entertaining. Her comparisons were most striking and amusing, and her
comments upon the books she read--for she was a great reader--were
very shrewd and clever, and always to the point. She was never out of
temper, even when the barrels of oil were being rolled across her
kitchen floor. And she was such a wise woman! This stage-ride, which
we expected to find tiresome, we enjoyed very much, and we were glad
to think, when the coach stopped, and "he" came to meet her with great

satisfaction, that we had one friend in Deephaven at all events.
I liked the house from my very first sight of it. It stood behind a row of
poplars which were as green and flourishing as the poplars which stand
in stately processions in the fields around Quebec. It was an imposing
great white house, and the lilacs were tall, and there were crowds of
rose-bushes not yet out of bloom; and there were box borders, and there
were great elms at the side of the house and down the road. The hall
door stood wide open, and my hostess turned to me as we went in, with
one of her sweet, sudden smiles. "Won't we have a good time, Nelly?"
said she. And I thought we should.
So our summer's housekeeping began in most pleasant fashion. It was
just at sunset, and Ann's and Maggie's presence made the house seem
familiar at once. Maggie had been unpacking for us, and there was a
delicious supper ready for the hungry girls. Later in the evening we
went down to the shore, which was not very far away; the fresh sea-air
was welcome after the dusty day, and it seemed so quiet and pleasant in
Deephaven.

The Brandon House and the Lighthouse
I do not know that the Brandon house is really very remarkable, but I
never have been in one that interested me in the same way. Kate used to
recount to select audiences at school some of her experiences with her
Aunt Katharine, and it was popularly believed that she once carried
down some indestructible picture-books when they were first in fashion,
and the old lady basted them for her to hem round the edges at the rate
of two a day. It may have been fabulous. It was impossible to imagine
any children in the old place; everything was for grown people; even
the stair-railing was too high to slide down on. The chairs looked as if
they had been put, at the furnishing of the house, in their places, and