Things had gone on now for some three years, and I’d about lived in my books,—­I’d tried to teach Faith some, but she wouldn’t go any farther than newspaper stories,—­when one day Dan took her and me to sail, and we were to have had a clam-chowder on the Point, if the squall hadn’t come.  As it was, we’d got to put up with chicken-broth, and it couldn’t have been better, considering who made it.  It was getting on toward the cool of the May evening, the sunset was round on the other side of the house, but all the east looked as if the sky had been stirred up with currant-juice, till it grew purple and dark, and then the two light-houses flared out and showed us the lip of froth lapping the shadowy shore beyond, and I—­heard father’s voice, and he came in.

There was nothing but the fire-light in the room, and it threw about great shadows, so that at first entering all was indistinct; but I heard a foot behind father’s, and then a form appeared, and something, I never could tell what, made a great shiver rush down my back, just as when a creature is frightened in the dark at what you don’t see, and so, though my soul was unconscious, my body felt that there was danger in the air.  Dan had risen and lighted the lamp that swings in the chimney, and father first of all had gone up and kissed mother, and left the stranger standing; then he turned round, saying,—­

“A tough day,—­it’s been a tough day; and here’s some un to prove it.  Georgie, hope that pot’s steam don’t belie it, for Mr. Gabriel Verelay and I want a good supper and a good bed.”

At this, the stranger, still standing, bowed.

“Here’s the one, father,” said I.  “But about the bed,—­Faith’ll have to stay here,—­and I don’t see—­unless Dan takes him over”——­

“That I’ll do,” said Dan.

“All right,” said the stranger, in a voice that you didn’t seem to notice while he was speaking, but that you remembered afterwards like the ring of any silver thing that has been thrown down; and he dropped his hat on the floor and drew near the fireplace, warming hands that were slender and brown, but shapely as a woman’s.  I was taking up the supper; so I only gave him a glance or two, and saw him standing there, his left hand extended to the blaze, and his eye resting lightly and then earnestly on Faith in her pretty sleep, and turning away much as one turns from a picture.  At length I came to ask him to sit by, and at that moment Faith’s eyes opened.

Faith always woke up just as a baby does, wide and bewildered, and the fire had flushed her cheeks, and her hair was disordered, and she fixed her gaze on him as if he had stepped out of her dream, her lips half parted and then curling in a smile,—­but in a second he moved off with me, and Faith slipped down and into the little bedroom.

Well, we didn’t waste many words until father’d lost the edge of his appetite, and then I told about Faith.

“’F that don’t beat the Dutch!” said father.  “Here’s Mr.--Mr.”------

“Gabriel,” said the stranger.