and patrolled the edges of the island, looking for treasures and tragic tokens of the unknown wreck; or they rowed around the broken bones of the mysterious ship, when the sea went down, but found no trace of what she had been, or under what flag she had sailed. They took up the form of the dead voyager, and, in solemn procession, gave it Christian burial on the bleak hill-top overlooking the harbor, where the people of the port exiled their dead. The village squire gathered all available particulars of the wreck into an elaborate account, which, shorn of its learned length, was duly printed in a Boston newspaper, and, weeks afterwards, reached Fairport and Nautilus Island, like a faint echo out of a half-forgotten past. And so all thought of the tragedy melted away from the minds of men.

Only Aunt Thankful and Miah, her husband, kept all these things in their hearts; but even they, as the years rolled on, almost ceased to fear that some one might come out of the great world which lay outside their narrow and secluded life, and, guided by the trinket found on the child's neck, claim and take from them their bright darling, Mamie, child of the sea.

There is no need to tell how Mamie grew into beautiful girlhood, and, never separated from her sturdy playmate Obed, haunted the rocks, spruce thickets, and ledges of the island like an elf. Elfish and uncanny she seemed, to the prim townspeople who occasionally came over to Nautilus Island on blueberry parties or fishing excursions. Knowing none but Aunt Thankful, Miah, and Obed, the child was shy of strangers, and, like a timid bird, would fly to the crags and fir-clumps, whence she and Obed looked curiously down on the merry-makers, whose gay clothing contrasted pleasantly with the dull linsey-woolsey and oil-skin garb of the old couple, whom these children thought almost the only people in the world. And strange stories were told in the port of the wild child of the Moreys, and the heathenish way in which she was brought up to dig clams, rob the gulls' nests, and climb rocks like a young monkey.

But Mamie had a touch of feminine imitativeness withal, and excessively amused the old people by "rigging herself" with wild flowers, sea-weeds, birds' feathers, and bits of birch bark, in which array she would promenade gravely with Obed up and down the beach, waving her birchen kerchief as a signal to far-off ships which never came, or to careless pleasure-boats that sailed away,

unheeding, into the blue depths of Long Island or Cape Rosiere.

Seated on a high black rock near by Man-o'War Reef, these happy children, unconscious of the mournful tragedies which had given name to island, reef, and rock, in other. years, would construct airy fleets out of their own fancies, launch them on the sunny bay, and sail away into the wonderful world which lay beneath the sky-rim-far, far beyond Long Island and Burncoat. To them the distant purple Camden Hills were an enchanted realm, where the sun set in a palace of gold and crystal; and away to the southward, where sky and water met, there was a fairyland, whence, once a year, came a richly freighted ship, which floated up the bay, past Nautilus Island, and, stately and proud, folded her snowy wings before the port, and there dropped anchor. This arrival was a great event for Fairport; but the ship, which brought to it a fragrance of the Indies, Cathay, and the Spice Islands, Madeira wine and Spanish olives, barbaric, curious things, and a cargo of Cadiz salt, brought for the two eager-eyed children on Nautilus Island a wonderful freight from that enchanted land which they talked of in their play, and from which some faint sounds had somehow reached them, and of which they had some tangible tokens: discarded scraps of finery from Alicante, and yellow shreds of lace, handiwork of the nuns of Fayal. How these faint echoes and poor little relics reached Nautilus Island we cannot tell. They drifted, as all such things drift to sea-shore children.

The chief delight of these little ones was the bar. This, a long strip of shingly sand, connected the island with Gray's Head, a stony-faced promontory which frowned upon the cove eastward of Nautilus Island. At low tide the bar was uncovered, and Mamie and Obed loved to run across on the oozy bridge, snatching a fearful joy from the unexplored recesses of the Head, hastening back as the water rose behind them, or gushed in eddying rivulets across the narrow tongue of land, licking out the light prints of their fast-flying feet. Barely escaping the rising tide, they sat breathless on the rocks, and watched the cheated waves dashing over their path, running to and fro like sleuthhounds on the track of the pursued, escaping fugitive.

But life was not all play for Mamie and Obed. The old couple, their foster-parents, earned their livelihood by furnishing fish, berries, eggs, and small farm products to the slender market of Fairport. Obed accom

panied Miah on his brief voyages into the coves and estuaries about the bay, gathering from the intricate waters which flowed around the many islands of Penobscot Bay their harvest of the sea. The girl, sometimes assisted by her foster-brother or mother, picked the wild berries of the pastures, dug clams at low tide, and with willing hands assisted Aunt Thankful in the work of the house and little farm. As she grew older she brought to all these tasks a certain airiness which was in odd contrast with her homely toil. She bloomed out in unexpected ways, and puzzled the old dame with her bizarre fancies. An undefinable native grace was in all her steps, and she loved the bright flowers and soft ferns with which she garlanded her head, and had an artist's fancy for the delicate shells which formed her necklace. A string of bright India peas that she wore for bracelets were to her beyond all price.

"That air gal will make a smart mantermaker and milliner when she's grown," was Aunt Thankful's frequent remark, when she saw how deftly she made wonderful snoods and sashes from the odds and ends of woman's attire which she found about the old cottage, or received from occasional female visitors from the port. And the distressed old woman wondered if the gypsy-like waywardness and love for bright colors and ornaments which possessed the child were not the tokens of some strain of blood which would, by and by, assert itself, and take her away to the "fine-feathered birds" with which she should mate. No wonder Thankful Morey, knowing nothing but her duty to her "old man," her sordid cares, and her own beloved pipe, grew restive as she watched. "Take off them air rags and tags, you little scarecrow," scolded she, as Mamie, decked with sea-shell necklace, a bit of blue ribbon, a wreath of wild columbines, and an ancient gauze veil, and carrying a pumpkin-leaf sunshade, pranced through the house on her way out to a promenade with Obed. The child uttered a little cry of defiance and escaped into the sunshine, followed by a mop-rag which the angry old woman threw after her.

"Dear suz me! old woman, let the gal alone," said Miah, who smoked his pipe contentedly on the door-stone. "Ef she enjoys that sort o' thing, let her be, can't ye?"

"Wal, but it duz rile me to see that air gal take on airs. She hasn't half the gumption that Obe has, and the Lord knaows he hasn't got enough to kill. Everybody would 'spose she was born with a silver spoon in

her mouth, by the way she carries sail. She's jest a worryin' the life outer me with her antics."

"Wal, now, Thankful, you jest know you wouldn't take a ship-load o' gold for that air gal, and wut's the use o' yer talkin'? Her dressin' comes in her blood, I cal'late; and ef her blood relations was to hev her, I dessay she'd wear furbelows like them highstrung Boston gals thet wuz over to the port las' summer."

And

This kind of speech, which was a long one for the taciturn Miah, never failed to silence the good wife, who loved the girl, with all her wayward and prankish tricks. when Mamie, discreetly hiding her decorations in the rocks, came in from her breezy walk by the beach, rosy and bright, the undemonstrative but softened dame only said: "Wal, naow, you are rely jest the puttiest little gal on the Bay, I do b'lieve."

But Obed always took Mamie's part, and when, sobbing and indignant, she sometimes fled from the sharp tongue of her fostermother, he tried to cheer her in his rough, boyish way, and vowed that when he grew up to be a man he would bring her from foreign parts all the laces and silks that money could buy; for Obed was to be a sailor and glean the world for Mamie. Smiling through her tears the child would ask: "And will you really and truly bring me a lace veil and a London doll that opens and shuts its eyes?"

A solemn promise from Obed gave occasion for a long and delightful confab on things in the future; and, hand in hand, the children sat on Black Rock, gazing far over the blue, sparkling waters of the bay at the distant sails that floated in the sunny sweep of sky and sea. Happy days! happy dreamers! Alas! that you must ever wake.

When Mamie had grown to be sixteen years old she was a tall, fair girl, with golden hair, shapely as a little queen, a peachy cheek, and eyes which reminded one of both sea and sky-they were so liquid yet so blue, with an uncertain tint like that of the bluegreen wave just off soundings when the sunlight streams through it. The fame of her wonderful beauty had gone out through all the islands, and when she, on rare occasions, rowed across the harbor with Obed and her foster-father, the rustic swains of the port came in groups to admire her from a distance, as she carried her small wares around among the stores of Fairport. she caught glimpses of the outer world, and the old-fashioned dry-goods, cheap jewelry, and nameless nothings which decorated the

Here

shelves and show-cases of the shops filled her with longings and imaginings unutterable. Obed guarded her jealously, and the natural manliness of the well-nurtured New England youth protected her from any offence to the half-startled shyness which she carried everywhere. Obed was dark and brown; his hands were hard, and his face had that young-old look which children of toil and poverty wear. But he was brave and loving; and he could row cross-handed, skin a haddock, set a lobster-pot, steer a pinkey, or turn a furrow with the best man on the Bay. He knew the times and seasons of the mackerel, tomcod, alewives, and smelt; where to find the biggest hake, and the sweetest scallops were to him a second nature. He had dived off the village wharf to save a boy from drowning, had picked twelve quarts of huckle-berries in a single afternoon, and earned the reputation of being the best salmon-weir builder in all the region round.

But he was nineteen years old, and when, after a short cruise down the Sound, he greeted his foster-sister as usual with a tremendous kiss, she blushed and told him, in sweet confusion, that he must not do so again. Grieved and injured, he asked the reason. "We are too old to be kissing each other like babies," and Mamie fled to hide her own embarrassment. That night Obed sat on the rocks alone in the starlight and looked out into the Bay. He watched the waves climb up and down Man-'o-War Reef, and thought of the sweet young life which had been snatched from its hungry jaws; he pondered again the story of her mysterious landing on the island. He looked over at the beacon-light across the harbor, which seemed to blink confidentially upon him as he knew at last that he loved Mamie, and that she might not always be his. He pictured her floating far away somewhere into the wonderful world that seemed to wait for her. The cottage hearthstone would be unlighted by her gracious presence. Aunt Thankful would forget her temporary asperities, and smoke her pipe in sorrowful silence; the dingy cabin walls would be dingier and narrower, and the sunshine would be gone from Nautilus Island. How could he keep it ?

But when winter came again, and Mamie went over to the port to attend "the Master's school," it was to supply the deficiencies of education which she felt must not exist when she married Obed in the spring.

Those were happy Saturday afternoons

when the stalwart young man, facing his beloved foster-sister crouched in the stern of his wherry, rowed her home to stay until Monday morning. Lovely were those wintry nights when the young couple, pacing hand in hand the icy beach, looked over the glittering bay, marked the pencil-ray of the light-house pointing afar, hearkened to the nine o'clock bell ringing in the distant village spire, and built anew their castles in the air, dreamed again their golden dreams, and beneath the frosty stars plighted again their undying love.

He

During the week-days Obed planned fresh surprises for Mamie's Saturday return. wreathed her bed-room windows with the trailing evergreen from Gray's Head, and strung great festoons of checker-berry and red wild-rose seed-vessels above her little looking-glass. The fragrant juniper with its purple berries perfumed her room, and a wonderful rug of mink and squirrel skins was laid where her dainty feet might most need it.

The humble fare of the family was garnished with its choicest dishes when Mamie came home for Saturday and Sunday; and on these occasions the picture of the beautiful girl, roughly sketched by a wandering artist who had visited the island, was newly decked with the winter ferns that Mamie loved best.

This portrait, sketchy and faint as it was, had been a cause of sore trouble once, for the artist, a gay, chattering young fellow from a distant city, while he painted it had talked of the bright world of art, fashion, wealth, and society, and had filled Mamie's head with strange fancies as he drew from her the story of her mysterious childhood. In a moment of unaccustomed ardor she had shown him the locket-portrait which she had worn about her neck when she was found in her dying father's arms. And Obed was angry when he heard the careless artist say that the portrait was that of "a highbred lady," and must have been painted in foreign parts. But that was all forgotten now, though he could never be quite reconciled to the thought that the painter had carried away with him a charming sketch of the waif of Nautilus Island, painted with the curious locket resting on her bosom.

Spring came, and brought an end to Mamie's schooling. The alders were all a-bloom with their tender catkins, and the trailing arbutus began to gleam in the recesses of the thickets. Here and there the yellow violets sparkled in the wet sod; the

bank swallows twittered among the rocks, and the clang of wild geese resounded far up in the tender mist of the sky. The young folks were across the bar, for the tide was down, and a climb up Gray's Head was not to be resisted on such a day; it was perfect in its cool fragrance and sunny brightness. It was a day to be remembered. It was remembered.

Dancing and skipping back across the bar, they paused midway to settle an affectionate little dispute.

"So you are sure you would love me just the same if I were worth a meeting-house full of gold?" queried the laughing girl.

Stretching his arms over the little rill of the sea which separated them, streaming across the bar with the rising tide, he answered:

"I should love you if you were a queen on a golden throne, and I were the slave who waited at your foot."

"If you were rich I should not love you, because you would be proud;" and she vaulted over the swelling current, adjusting the much-vexed question as they paced homewards.

At the landing-place they saw a Fairport boat, and reaching the cottage they beheld, standing in the middle of the room which served as kitchen, sitting-room, and bedroom for the old couple, a stranger, who held in his hand Mamie's locket. His face was fine and pure; his air was strangely out of keeping with the humble surroundings, and on him was the fragrant breath of another sphere than that of Nautilus Island. looked at the stony face of Aunt Thankful, the sad features of the locket-portrait, and on the bewildered, changeful eyes of the girl, and said: "My sister's child!"

He

At last the mystery was cleared. The ship Arethusa, bound from Calcutta to Portland, years ago, carried homeward John Minton, who had buried his wife in a far-off | land, and, accompanied by a native nurse, had taken his motherless child to his own country. By what disastrous chance the ship had been so far diverted from her proper course as to be wrecked on Man-o'-War Reef no living man can tell. But where the good ship Nautilus had been broken up in 1797, and where a proud Spanish man-of-war had met its death two years later, the Arethusa went to pieces on a fatal night in March, 18—; and only this golden-haired girl remained of all those strong lives which were whelmed in the breakers of the reef.

The wild, fantastic fancies of the children had blossomed into reality at last.

The

tell-tale artist had showed his picture of the rustic beauty of Nautilus Island to his friends and patrons in the great city where he wrought. The likeness to her dead mother, the strange locket on her breast, the mystery of her birth,-all these had piqued a languid curiosity among the artist's acquaintances; but they furnished a chain which led straight from the gay capital to Miah Morey's cabin by the shores of the Penobscot.

Why should I dwell on the scenes that followed?

Mr.

New England people are not given to tears and scenes, wild bursts of grief and heart-rending farewells. It was settled that Mamie ought to go and see her new-found relatives, while proper steps were taken to secure to her her father's property. Horton was ready to recognize Obed's right to the hand of his niece, since she claimed that it was a right. But the young man could wait; Mamie lacked a year and more of being eighteen; and, meantime, she should take a look at the world before she married and settled down on Nautilus Island; and the man of the city looked a little superciliously about him as he spoke.

So he went over to the port for a day or two while Mamie was prepared for her journey. And there fell a great silence on the household. Mamie and Obed sat on Black Rock, and watched the sea come and go; she, tearful and trembling, talked of the joyousness of the time when she should come back with her "shipload of gold," to make dear Aunt Thankful and Uncle Miah comfortable to the end of their days. He, jealous and distraught, was half sure she was glad to go. Old Miah mended his nets in silence, and his good wife sternly went about her household duties, feeling, she savagely muttered to herself, "as if there was a funeral in the house."

And the day came when Obed received the lingering feet of his beloved playmate into his boat; she sobbed once more her farewells on the ample bosom of Aunt Thankful, and kissed the sea-beaten face of old Miah. They shoved off from the familiar old landing-place; Mamie turned her eyes, swollen with weeping, to the silent, rigid figures of the aged couple on the shore; Obed grimly choked down a great lump in his throat, and, with manly strokes, swept out into the tide which bore them toward the port where the girl's uncle waited to take her to her new home.

When the Bucksport stage, which carried

his love away, had climbed Windmill Hill, dazed Obed had rowed back to the island. He plodded in a blind sort of way to the rocks where he and Mamie had sat in childhood, and had built their youthful fancies in the floating clouds. So he sat alone for hours, until he saw, far across the bay, the plume of smoke which marked where the Boston steamboat glided down the coast, bearing from him all that was dear on earth; then he went calmly away, and, with a set face, turned his fish-flakes to the westering

sun.

The silent, self-contained household said no word of the day's great event, save, when the nine o'clock bell chimed from the village spire across the 'tide, Aunt Thankful, as she covered the fire, said: "I cal'late that poor gal is drefful sea-sick naow."

The season

The days passed wearily. advanced rapidly; the leaves rushed out on the trees, and the corn crackled its green blades in the field behind the fish-house, but there was no longer any life on Nautilus Island. Aunt Thankful's "rheumatiz" was worse than usual; and though there was a fine run of salmon that spring, and drift-wood was uncommonly plenty, old Miah felt "diskerridged and clean beat out." Obed worked harder than ever before, but he rowed over to town every night, and waited about the corner until the sound of the postoffice horn told him to ask for a letter.

At last it came, that wonderful letter, and the sunset gleams were richer, redder, and more glorious as Obed, drifting with the tide, sat on the thwart where she had often sat with him, and, resting his idle oars, read her loving words. She was well and happy in her new home. How could she be happy, thought Obed, half in anger; but he was glad to see that all her bliss was dashed by the thought that she was away from him. She ran on, page after page, describing the Hortons, who lived in a grand house, had servants by the score, with gay equipage and brilliant company. Her aunt was a lovely woman with pink cheeks and waves of real lace. Her only cousin was a handsome young fellow with such a splendid moustache! And would not Obed wear a moustache, it would become him so. Then there followed many minute inquiries about Aunt Thankful and Uncle Miah. Did the gray duck hatch out well, and was the top-knot hen ready to set yet? Obed must be sure and not forget her doves; how did the tom-cod season turn out? And, oh, had he been across the Bar lately? On the whole, the letter

was decided, in family conclave, a very satisfactory and altogether grand affair. Obed had a secret pang of jealousy whenever he thought of the handsome city cousin with the matchless moustache; and he could not altogether see how Mamie could by and by forego the luxurious home which she described, and return to the dingy cabin of Nautilus Island.

With laborious hands he wrote a sunny reply to her letter, faithfully cataloguing all the domestic incidents which had occurred and commenting on each as he wrote.

At

And Mamie? In her city home she was transfigured by the magic of dress and surroundings. No linsey-woolsey and calico now; no bizarre sea-weed and cockle-shell decorations. With that wonderful intuition which beautiful women have, she overruled and guided the artistic fancies of her aunt and her millinery women; and the untutored child of the sea-shore arrayed herself in matchless garniture. Soft, bright colors, diaphanous laces, and flowing lines were but the unnoticed accessories of the rare beauty into which she bloomed. Her brown face cleared into rosy alabaster ; the sharp lines of her mouth grew soft and full; her glorious hair took on a more golden glow in its bands of pearl and gold. last her luxurious tastes and craving for beautiful things were satisfied. Sometimes she stood gravely before the great mirror in her dressing-room, delighting her eyes with the sheen of her silk, the gossamer-like airiness of her rufflings, and asked if this fair flower-like creature, so rarely decked, could be the Waif of Nautilus Island? Locking her door securely, she paced stately up and down her room, learning to sweep with grace her shining drapery, waving her round arms, half hid in lace, and turning her haughty head, as she imagined her beautiful mother in the picture-locket must have walked and moved and turned her lovely head when she was a fair young girl.

But in the most ravishing strains of the grand operas, in the pauses of the gay gossip of the ball-room, and in the midst of the splendor of drawing-rooms, her true heart went back to her own home. She saw Aunt Thankful spinning in the sun by the door; Uncle Miah solitarily tended his lobster-pots, and thought of his dear little girl so far away. And Obed, of course, he looked across the Bar, and his eye sought out the ledges in the rocks where they two had sat and dreamed, or it dwelt lovingly on the mossy tree trunks among which they had