“Wouldn’t you have liked to stay longer?” Kate asked Mrs. Kew as we came down the street.  But she answered that it would be no satisfaction; the people were coming in, and she would have no chance to talk.  “I never knew her very well; she is younger than I, and she used to go to meeting where I did, but she lived five or six miles from our house.  She’s had a hard time of it, according to her account,” said Mrs. Kew.  “She used to be a dreadful flighty, high-tempered girl, but she’s lost that now, I can see by her eyes.  I was running over in my mind to see if there was anything I could do for her, but I don’t know as there is.  She said the man who hired her was kind.  I guess your treating her so polite did her as much good as anything.  She used to be real ambitious.  I had it on my tongue’s end to ask her if she couldn’t get a few days’ leave and come out to stop with me, but I thought just in time that she’d sink the dory in a minute.  There! seeing her has took away all the fun,” said Mrs. Kew ruefully; and we were all dismal for a while, but at last, after we were fairly started for home, we began to be merry again.

We passed the Craper family whom we had seen at the store in the morning; the children looked as stupid as ever, but the father, I am sorry to say, had been tempted to drink more whiskey than was good for him.  He had a bright flush on his cheeks, and he was flourishing his whip, and hoarsely singing some meaningless tune.  “Poor creature!” said I, “I should think this day’s pleasuring would kill him.”  “Now, wouldn’t you think so?” said Mrs. Kew, sympathizingly; “but the truth is, you couldn’t kill one of those Crapers if you pounded him in a mortar.”

We had a pleasant drive home, and we kept Mrs. Kew to supper, and afterward went down to the shore to see her set sail for home.  Mr. Kew had come in some time before, and had been waiting for the moon to rise.  Mrs. Kew told us that she should have enough to think of for a year, she had enjoyed the day so much; and we stood on the pebbles watching the boat out of the harbor, and wishing ourselves on board, it was such a beautiful evening.

* * * * *

We went to another show that summer, the memory of which will never fade.  It is somewhat impertinent to call it a show, and “public entertainment” is equally inappropriate, though we certainly were entertained.  It had been raining for two or three days; the Deephavenites spoke of it as “a spell of weather.”  Just after tea, one Thursday evening, Kate and I went down to the post-office.  When we opened the great hall door, the salt air was delicious, but we found the town apparently wet through and discouraged; and though it had almost stopped raining just then, there was a Scotch mist, like a snow-storm with the chill taken off, and the Chantrey elms dripped hurriedly, and creaked occasionally in the east-wind.

“There will not be a cap’n on the wharves for a week after this,” said I to Kate; “only think of the cases of rheumatism!”