of the sea at the cottage. Caleb had more than once told her that
she was too much alone, but she had laughed at him, saying that
solitude in Bermuda was not dangerous. Nor, indeed, was it; for the
people are quiet and well-mannered, lacking much energy, but being,
in the same degree, free from any propensity to violence.

"So you are going," she said to her lover, one evening, as he rose
from the chair on which he had been swinging himself at the door of
the cottage which looks down over the creek of the sea. He had sat
there for an hour talking to her as she worked, or watching her as
she moved about the place. It was a beautiful evening, and the sun
had been falling to rest with almost tropical glory before his feet.
The bright oleanders were red with their blossoms all around him,
and he had thoroughly enjoyed his hour of easy rest. "So you are
going," she said to him, not putting her work out of her hand as he
rose to depart.

"Yes; and it is time for me to go. I have still work to do before I
can get to bed. Ah, well; I suppose the day will come at last when
I need not leave you as soon as my hour of rest is over."

"Come; of course it will come. That is, if your reverence should
choose to wait for it another ten years or so."

"I believe you would not mind waiting twenty years."

"Not if a certain friend of mine would come down and see me of
evenings when I'm alone after the day. It seems to me that I
shouldn't mind waiting as long as I had that to look for."