Deephaven | Page 8

and Kate told me
Miss Katharine's youngest and favorite brother had become a Roman
Catholic while studying in Europe. It was a dreadful blow to the family;
for in those days there could have been few deeper disgraces to the
Brandon family than to have one of its sons go over to popery. Only
Miss Katharine treated him with kindness, and after a time he
disappeared without telling even her where he was going, and was only
heard from indirectly once or twice afterward. It was a great grief to her.
"And mamma knows," said Kate, "that she always had a lingering hope
of his return, for one of the last times she saw Aunt Katharine before
she was ill she spoke of soon going to be with all the rest, and said,
'Though your Uncle Henry, dear,'--and stopped and smiled sadly; 'you'll
think me a very foolish old woman, but I never quite gave up thinking
he might come home.'"
* * * * *
Mrs. Kew did the honors of the lighthouse thoroughly on our first visit;
but I think we rarely went to see her that we did not make some
entertaining discovery. Mr. Kew's nephew, a guileless youth of forty,
lived with them, and the two men were of a mechanical turn and had
invented numerous aids to housekeeping,--appendages to the stove, and
fixtures on the walls for everything that could be hung up; catches in
the floor to hold the doors open, and ingenious apparatus to close them;

but, above all, a system of barring and bolting for the wide "fore door,"
which would have disconcerted an energetic battering-ram. After all
this work being expended, Mrs. Kew informed us that it was usually
wide open all night in summer weather. On the back of this door I
discovered one day a row of marks, and asked their significance. It
seemed that Mrs. Kew had attempted one summer to keep count of the
number of people who inquired about the depredations of the
neighbors' chickens. Mrs. Kew's bedroom was partly devoted to the
fine arts. There was a large collection of likenesses of her relatives and
friends on the wall, which was interesting in the extreme. Mrs. Kew
was always much pleased to tell their names, and her remarks about
any feature not exactly perfect were very searching and critical. "That's
my oldest brother's wife, Clorinthy Adams that was. She's well featured,
if it were not for her nose, and that looks as if it had been thrown at her,
and she wasn't particular about having it on firm, in hopes of getting a
better one. She sets by her looks, though."
There were often sailing-parties that came there from up and down the
coast. One day Kate and I were spending the afternoon at the Light; we
had been fishing, and were sitting in the doorway listening to a
reminiscence of the winter Mrs. Kew kept school at the Four Corners;
saw a boatful coming, and all lost our tempers. Mrs. Kew had a lame
ankle, and Kate offered to go up with the visitors. There were some
girls and young men who stood on the rocks awhile, and then asked us,
with much better manners than the people who usually came, if they
could see the lighthouse, and Kate led the way. She was dressed that
day in a costume we both frequently wore, of gray skirts and blue
sailor-jacket, and her boots were much the worse for wear. The
celebrated Lancaster complexion was rather darkened by the sun. Mrs.
Kew expressed a wish to know what questions they would ask her, and
I followed after a few minutes. They seemed to have finished asking
about the lantern, and to have become personal.
"Don't you get tired staying here?"
"No, indeed!" said Kate.
"Is that your sister down stairs?"

"No, I have no sister."
"I should think you would wish she was. Aren't you ever lonesome?"
"Everybody is, sometimes," said Kate.
"But it's such a lonesome place!" said one of the girls. "I should think
you would get work away. I live in Boston. Why, it's so awful quiet!
nothing but the water, and the wind, when it blows; and I think either of
them is worse than nothing. And only this little bit of a rocky place! I
should want to go to walk."
I heard Kate pleasantly refuse the offer of pay for her services, and then
they began to come down the steep stairs laughing and chattering with
each other. Kate stayed behind to close the doors and leave everything
all right, and the girl who had talked the most waited too, and when
they were on the stairs just above me, and the others out of hearing, she
said, "You're real good