shaped pebbles; occasionally there was a stuffed water-bird, or a
bright-colored print, and always a violin. Black-eyed children played
in the water which bordered their narrow beach-gardens; and slender
women, with shining black hair, stood in their doorways knitting. I
found my laundress, and then went on to Jeannette's home, the last
house in the row. From the mother, a Chippewa woman, I learned that
Jeannette was with her French father at the fishing-grounds off
Drummond's Island.

'How long has she been away?' I asked.

'Weeks four,' replied the mother, whose knowledge of English was
confined to the price-list of white-fish and blueberries, the two
articles of her traffic with the boarding-house keepers.

'When will she return?'

'Je n'sais.'

She knitted on, sitting in the sunshine on her little doorstep,
looking out over the western water with tranquil content in her
beautiful, gentle eyes. As I walked up the beach I glanced back
several times to see if she had the curiosity to watch me; but no, she
still looked out over the western water. What was I to her? Less than
nothing. A white-fish was more.

A week or two later I strolled out to the Giant's Stairway and sat
down in the little rock chapel. There was a picnic at the Lovers'
Leap, and I had that side of the island to myself. I was leaning
back, half asleep, in the deep shadow, when the sound of voices roused