So the poor old mother up in
Maine never had her boys brought back to her after all. Mr. Coles
says it seems as if it were foreordained that they should not rest
in a grave, but should lie beneath the waves until the day when
the sea gives up its dead."
"'They sleep as well beneath that purple tide
As others under turf,'"
quoted Miss Reade softly. "I am very thankful," she added. "that
I am not one of those whose dear ones 'go down to the sea in
ships.' It seems to me that they have treble their share of this
world's heartache."
"Uncle Stephen was a sailor and he was drowned," said Felicity,
"and they say it broke Grandmother King's heart. I don't see why
people can't be contented on dry land."
Cecily's tears had been dropping on the autograph quilt square she
was faithfully embroidering. She had been diligently collecting
names for it ever since the preceding autumn and had a goodly
number; but Kitty Marr had one more and this was certainly a fly
in Cecily's ointment.
"Besides, one I've got isn't paid for--Peg Bowen's," she lamented,
"and I don't suppose it ever will be, for I'll never dare to ask
her for it."
"I wouldn't put it on at all," said Felicity.
"Oh, I don't dare not to. She'd be sure to find out I didn't and
then she'd be very angry.
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