She brightened at once. "That'll do brave. Tell 'en I hope he's
keepin' well, and give my love to the others."

"Right you are," promised Seth cheerfully, pushing off.

"And don't you forget!" she called after us.

Seth laughed. "That's a very good girl, now," he commented as he
settled himself to the tiller again. "Must be a poor job courtin' with
a light-house man: not much walkin' together for they. No harm, I
s'pose, in your seem' the maid's book." He handed it to my father, who
shook his head.

"Aw," went on Seth, guessing why he hesitated, "there's no writin' in
it--only print." He held the book open. It was a nautical almanack,
and night by night the girl had pencilled out the hour of sunset.
Night by night the first flash of the Off Island lamp carried her
lover's message to her, and, as Seth explained (but it needed no
explanation), at that signal she blotted out yet one more of the days
between her and the marriage day.

Off Island rose from the sea a sheer mass of granite, about a hundred
and fifty feet in height, and all but inaccessible had it not been for a
rock stair-way hewn out by the Brethren of the Trinity House.
The keepers had spied our boat, and a tall young man stood on one of the
lower steps to welcome us: not Reuben, but Reuben's younger brother Sam.
Reuben met us at the top of the staircase, where the puffins built so
thickly that a false step would almost certainly send the foot crashing
through the roof of one of their oddly shaped houses. He too was a tall