They were both silent for a little time. Then Captain Jim said very softly:
“Mistress Blythe, may I tell you about lost Margaret?“
“Of course,” said Anne gently. She did not know who “lost Margaret” was, but she felt that she was going to hear the romance of Captain Jim’s life.
“I’ve often wanted to tell you about her,” Captain Jim went on.
“Do you know why, Mistress Blythe? It’s because I want somebody to remember and think of her sometime after I’m gone. I can’t bear that her name should be forgotten by all living souls. And now nobody remembers lost Margaret but me.”
Then Captain Jim told the story—an old, old forgotten story, for it was over fifty years since Margaret had fallen asleep one day in her father’s dory and drifted—or so it was supposed, for nothing was ever certainly known as to her fate—out of the channel, beyond the bar, to perish in the black thundersquall which had come up so suddenly that long-ago summer afternoon. But to Captain Jim those fifty years were but as yesterday when it is past.
“I walked the shore for months after that,” he said sadly, “looking to find her dear, sweet little body; but the sea never give her back to me. But I’ll find her sometime, Mistress Blythe—I’ll find her sometime. She’s waiting for me. I wish I could tell you jest how she looked, but I can’t. I’ve seen a fine, silvery mist hanging over the bar at sunrise that seemed like
