Deephaven | Page 9

to show us the things. I guess you'll think I'm
silly, but I do like you ever so much! I wish you would come to Boston.
I'm in a real nice store,--H----'s, on Winter Street; and they will want
new saleswomen in October. Perhaps you could be at my counter. I'd
teach you, and you could board with me. I've got a real comfortable
room, and I suppose I might have more things, for I get good pay; but I
like to send money home to mother. I'm at my aunt's now, but I am
going back next Monday, and if you will tell me what your name is, I'll
find out for certain about the place, and write you. My name's Mary
Wendell."
I knew by Kate's voice that this had touched her. "You are very kind;
thank you heartily," said she; "but I cannot go and work with you. I
should like to know more about you. I live in Boston too; my friend
and I are staying over in Deephaven for the summer only." And she
held out her hand to the girl, whose face had changed from its first
expression of earnest good-humor to a very startled one; and when she
noticed Kate's hand, and a ring of hers, which had been turned round,
she looked really frightened.
"O, will you please excuse me?" said she, blushing. "I ought to have

known better; but you showed us round so willing, and I never thought
of your not living here. I didn't mean to be rude."
"Of course you did not, and you were not. I am very glad you said it,
and glad you like me," said Kate; and just then the party called the girl,
and she hurried away, and I joined Kate. "Then you heard it all. That
was worth having!" said she. "She was such an honest little soul, and I
mean to look for her when I get home."
Sometimes we used to go out to the Light early in the morning with the
fishermen who went that way to the fishing-grounds, but we usually
made the voyage early in the afternoon if it were not too hot, and we
went fishing off the rocks or sat in the house with Mrs. Kew, who often
related some of her Vermont experiences, or Mr. Kew would tell us
surprising sea-stories and ghost-stories like a story-book sailor. Then
we would have an unreasonably good supper and afterward climb the
ladder to the lantern to see the lamps lighted, and sit there for a while
watching the ships and the sunset. Almost all the coasters came in sight
of Deephaven, and the sea outside the light was their grand highway.
Twice from the lighthouse we saw a yacht squadron like a flock of
great white birds. As for the sunsets, it used to seem often as if we were
near the heart of them, for the sea all around us caught the color of the
clouds, and though the glory was wonderful, I remember best one still
evening when there was a bank of heavy gray clouds in the west
shutting down like a curtain, and the sea was silver-colored. You could
look under and beyond the curtain of clouds into the palest, clearest
yellow sky. There was a little black boat in the distance drifting slowly,
climbing one white wave after another, as if it were bound out into that
other world beyond. But presently the sun came from behind the clouds,
and the dazzling golden light changed the look of everything, and it
was the time then to say one thought it a beautiful sunset; while before
one could only keep very still, and watch the boat, and wonder if
heaven would not be somehow like that far, faint color, which was
neither sea nor sky.
When we came down from the lighthouse and it grew late, we would
beg for an hour or two longer on the water, and row away in the

twilight far out from land, where, with our faces turned from the Light,
it seemed as if we were alone, and the sea shoreless; and as the
darkness closed round us softly, we watched the stars come out, and
were always glad to see Kate's star and my star, which we had chosen
when we were children. I used long ago to be sure of one thing,--that,
however far away heaven might be, it could not be out of sight of the
stars. Sometimes in the evening we waited out at sea for the moonrise,
and then we would take the oars again and go slowly in, once in a while
singing or talking, but oftenest silent.

My Lady Brandon and the Widow Jim
When it was known that we