busy, tho', an' it's healthy exercise."

In spite of his investment in a mine, he had been frugal and owned most of the land between the village and the point, and was also joint owner, with two other men, in a small trading-schooner that made semi-monthly trips between the Cape and Boston. She carried fish, clams, lobsters, hay, and potatoes, and fetched an "all sorts" cargo useful to the islanders, from a paper of needles to a hogshead of molasses.

The most pronounced characteristic of Uncle Terry was his unfailing good humor, tinged with a mild sarcasm. He loved his fellow-men, and yet enjoyed puncturing their small conceits, but so droll was his way of doing it that no one felt the sting. To Bascom, who kept the only store, and also post-office, at the Cape, and dearly loved to hear himself talk, Uncle Terry once said: "You've got the greatest gift o' gab I ever heerd, Bascom, and you could 'a' made your fortin in the show business. But if you're ever took with religion, the hull island'll turn infiddle."

And again: when Deacon Oaks, the leader at all prayer-meetings, assured him how great a blessing religion was, and how much he enjoyed divine service, Uncle Terry answered: "Your takin' the lead at meetin's is a blessin' to the rest, for none of 'em has to worry 'bout who's goin' to speak next. They know you're allus ready."

In this connection it must be stated that the spiritual life of Southport was of a primitive description. The small unpainted church at the Cape, above which hung a diminutive bell, was the only place of worship, and to this, every other Sunday, came a minister from the mainland. It was furnished with long wooden settees and a small cottage organ graced the platform, upon which an antique desk did duty as pulpit and a storage place for hymn books. Four wall bracket lamps lighted this room for evening service, and their usually smoky chimneys lent a depressing effect to all exhortation. "Mandy" Oaks presided at the organ and turned gospel hymns into wheezy and rather long-drawn-out melodies. Most of the audience tried to chase the tunes along and imagined they were singing, which, perhaps, is all that is necessary. On the Sundays between the minister's visits only evening services were held, and every Thursday evening a prayer-meeting. It was on these latter occasions that Deacon Oaks was in conspicuous evidence. The Widow Leach, a poor unfortunate woman who had seen better days, and in whose poverty stricken life religion was the only consolation, was also prominent; and her testimony, unvarying in tenor as the tunes played by Mandy, helped to fill out the service.

"It's lucky the widow's sure o' lots o' happiness in the next world," observed Uncle Terry once, "for she ain't gittin' much in this.

"I can't hear Oaks, though, 'thout thinkin' o' Deacon Rogers up in Wolcott, who never mentioned the need o' rain till he'd got his hay in. He was a sly fox, and allus thanked the Lord for sendin' rain nights an' Sundays, so the poor hired men could rest.

"I used to have him held up as a shinin' example, but he opened my eyes arter I began dickerin' by sellin' me a lot o' eggs that had been sot on two weeks, an' the storeman I sold 'em to never trusted me agin. 'Twas a case o' the ungodly sufferin' for the sins o' the righteous that time, which may be a pervarsion o' Scriptur, but the truth, just the same.

"But I got a little comfort finally, for when the Deacon died, by some inadvartance the choir sang, 'Praise God from whom all blessin's flow,' an' I wa'n't the only one who felt that way, either."

In spite of Uncle Terry's mildly flavored shafts of sarcasm, he made no enemies and his kind heart and sterling honesty were respected far and near. He was considered a doubter and skeptic, and though seldom seen at church, as he had originally contributed his share when that edifice was built, his lack of piety was forgiven.

There is a sense of justice underlying all men's minds, and the natural instinct is to judge others by what they are and how they live, rather than by what they profess, and so it was in Uncle Terry's case. He lived truthfully, obeyed his conscience, observed the Golden Rule, wronged no one, and as with many others who do likewise, he had a right to feel that in the final balance his book of life would show a wide margin on the credit side.

CHAPTER III

TWO ORPHANS

A stranger visiting Sandgate on a summer afternoon would inevitably conclude the town was asleep. Often not a person would be visible the entire length of its main street, cooled by three rows of maples, one dividing it, and one shading each of the two sidewalks formed of narrow strips of weather-stained marble. Under some of these trees that almost touch branches for half a mile one or two cows might be grazing or taking a siesta while chewing the cud of content. On the vine-hid porch of the village tavern landlord Pell would quite likely be dozing in an arm-chair tilted back, and across the way Mr. Hobbs, who keeps the one general store, would as likely be napping on a counter, his head pillowed upon a pile of calico. A little further up the street and near the one tall-spired white church Mrs. Mears, the village gossip, may be sitting on the veranda of a small house almost hid by luxuriantly growing Norway spruce, and idly rocking while she chats with the widow Sloper, who lives there, and whose mission in life is to cut and fit the best "go to meetin'" gowns of female Sandgate. Both dearly love to talk over all that's going on, and whether this or that village swain is paying especial attention to any one rosy cheeked lass, and if so "what's likely to come on't." Both mean well by this neighborly interest, and especially does Mrs. Sloper, who always advises plaits for stout women, "with middlin' fulness in the bust" for thin ones.

One or two men may be at work haying in the broad meadows west of the village, through which the slow current of a small river twists and turns, or others wielding hoes on a hillside field of corn to the east, but so far as moving life in the village street goes there will be none. On either side of the Sandgate valley two spurs of the Green Mountain Range, forest-clad, stand guard as if to isolate from all the world this peaceful dale, whose dwellers' sole ambition in life may be summed up in—to plow, plant, reap, and go to meeting.

On the north end of this park-like highway, and beyond the last house, it narrows to an ordinary roadway and divides. One fork turns to the right, following up the banks of a winding stream to an old grist-mill with moss-covered wheel and lily-dotted pond above. The other turns to the left, crosses the narrow Sandgate valley, and bears south past the Page place. If it were Sunday, not many years ago, and about eleven in the morning, a stranger passing the church would have heard through the open doors and windows the exquisitely sweet voice of Alice Page, clear as a bell and melodious as a bird's, toying and trilling through "Coronation," or some other easily recognized hymn; and had that stranger awaited the close of service he or she would have seen among the congregation filing out one petite and plump little lady, with flower-like face, sparkling blue eyes, and kiss-inspiring mouth, who would most likely have walked demurely along with her big brother Albert, and turning down a narrow pathway, follow him across the meadows, over a foot-bridge that spans the stream, and up to an old-fashioned elm-shaded house.

This landmark, known far and wide as the Page place, is historic. Built in the time of King George, and one of the first three erected in Sandgate, it has withstood the storms of two centuries and seen many generations of Pages come and go. Additions have been made to it—an ell on one side, larger windows and a wide veranda in front. Inside it is much the same, for the open fireplaces remain in parlor and sitting-room and a tall clock of solemn tick stands in the