took one look at Charlie strugglin' in the boat, raced down to the landin' an' put out to him just about at the minute he was waverin' as to whether he'd chuck pole, line, an' sinker overboard, or go overboard himself.

"Quicker'n scat she had the fish-pole, an' while we looked on, Charlie dropped down kinder limp on the seat of the boat an' begun tyin' up his hand in a spandy clean pocket handkerchief while The Widder gaffed the fish an' hauled it in."

"My soul!" exploded Abbie Brewster. "My soul an' body!"

"Later on," continued Zenas Henry, "Charlie overtook us. He'd stowed away his fish-pole somewheres. Leastway, he didn't have it with him. When Lemmy an' me asked him where his fish was, he looked blacker'n thunder an' snapped out: 'Hang the fish!'

"Seein' he warn't in no mood for neighborly conversation, we left him an' come along home."

Chapter II

In the meantime, Marcia Howe, the heroine of this escapade, comfortably ensconced in her island homestead, paid scant heed to the fact that she and her affairs were continually on the tongues of the outlying community.

She was not ignorant of it for, although too modest to think herself of any great concern to others, her intuitive sixth sense made her well aware her goings and comings were watched. This knowledge, however, far from nettling her, as it might have done had she been a woman blessed with less sense of humor, afforded her infinite amusement. She liked people and because of her habit of looking for the best in them she usually found it. Their spying, she realized, came from motives of interest. She had never known it to be put to malicious use. Hence, she never let it annoy her.

She loved her home; valued her kindly, if inquisitive, neighbors at their true worth; and met the world with a smile singularly free from hardness or cynicism.

Bitter though her experience had been, it had neither taken from, nor, miraculously, had it dimmed her faith in her particular star. On the contrary there still glowed in her grey eyes that sparkle of anticipation one sees in the eyes of one who stands a-tiptoe on the threshold of adventure. Apparently she had in her nature an unquenchable spirit of hope that nothing could destroy. No doubt youth had aided her to retain this vision for she was still young and the highway of life, alluring in rosy mists, beckoned her along its mysterious path with persuasive hand. Who could tell what its hidden vistas might contain?

Her start, she confessed, had been an unpropitious one. But starts sometimes were like that; and did not the old adage affirm that a bad beginning made for a fair ending?

Furthermore, the error had been her own. She had been free to choose and she had chosen unwisely. Why whine about it? One must be a sport and play the game. She was older now and better fitted to look after herself than she had been at seventeen. Only a fool made the same blunder twice, and if experience had been a pitiless teacher, it had also been a helpful and convincing one.

Marcia did not begrudge her lesson. Unquestionably, it had taken from her its toll; but on the other hand it had left as compensation something she would not have exchanged for gold.

The past with its griefs, its humiliations, its heartbreak, its failure lay behind—the future all before her. It was hers—hers! She would be wary what she did with it and never again would she squander it for dross.

Precisely what she wished or intended to make of that future she did not know. There were times when a wave of longing for something she could not put into words surged up within her with a force not to be denied. Was it loneliness? She was not so lonely that she did not find joy in her home and its daily routine of domestic duties.

On the contrary, she attacked these pursuits with tireless zeal. She liked sweeping, dusting, polishing brasses, and making her house as fresh as the sea breezes that blew through it. She liked to brew and bake; to sniff browning pie crust and the warm spiciness of ginger cookies. Keen pleasure came to her when she surveyed spotless beds, square at the corners and covered with immaculate counterpanes. She found peace and refreshment in softened lights, flowers, the glow of driftwood fires.

As for the more strenuous tasks connected with homemaking, they served as natural and pleasurable vents for her surplus energy. She revelled in painting, papering, shingling; and the solution of the balking enigmas presented by plumbing, chimneys, drains and furnaces.

If there lingered deep within her heart vague, unsatisfied yearnings, Marcia resolutely held over these filmy imaginings a tight rein. To be busy—that was her gospel. She never allowed herself to remain idle for any great length of time. To prescribe the remedy and faithfully apply it was no hardship to one whose active physique and abounding vigor demanded an abundance of exercise. Like an athlete set to run a race, she gloried in her physical strength.

When she tramped the shore, the wind blowing her hair and the rich blood pulsing in her cheeks; when her muscles stretched taut beneath an oar or shot out against the resistance of the tide, a feeling of unity with a power greater than herself caught her up, thrilling every fibre of her being. She was never unsatisfied then. She felt herself to be part of a force mighty and infinite—a happy, throbbing part. Today, as she moved swiftly about the house and her deft hands made tidy the rooms, she had that sense of being in step with the world.

The morning, crisp with an easterly breeze, had stirred the sea into a swell that rose rhythmically in measureless, breathing immensity far away to its clear-cut, sapphire horizon. The sands had never glistened more white; the surf never curled at her doorway in a prettier, more feathery line. On the ocean side, where winter's lashing storms had thrown up a protecting phalanx of dunes, the coarse grasses she had sown to hold them tossed in the wind, while from the Point, where her snowy domains dipped into more turbulent waters, she could hear the grating roar of pebbles mingle with the crash of heavier breakers.

It all spoke to her of home—home as she had known it from childhood—as her father and her father's father had known it. Boats, nets, the screaming of gulls, piping winds, and the sting of spray on her face were bone of her bone, flesh of her flesh. The salt of deep buried caverns was in her veins; the chant of the ocean echoed the beating of her own heart.

Lonely?

If she needed anything it was a companion to whom to cry: "Isn't it glorious to be alive?" and she already had such a one.

Never was there such a comrade as Prince Hal!

Human beings often proved themselves incapable of grasping one another's moods—but he? Never!

He knew when to speak and when to be silent; when to be in evidence and when to absent himself. His understanding was infinite; his fidelity as unchanging as the stars. Moreover, he was an honorable dog, a thoroughbred, a gentleman. That was why she had bestowed upon him an aristocratic name. He demanded it.

She would never want for a welcome while he had strength to wag his white plume of tail; nor lack affection so long as he was able to race up the beach and race back again to hurl himself upon her with his sharp, staccato yelp of joy.

When easterly gales rocked the rafters and the wind howled with eerie moanings down the broad chimney; when line after line of foaming breakers steadily advanced, crashing up on the shore with a fury that threatened to invade