The quiet gentleman to whom she had given an upper room that looked out upon woods and waters, a bit of pasture, a stretch of coast, and a pale blue sky full of sudsy clouds, thought that Mr. Jason Vandervelde’s fervent praises hadn’t done justice to this bit of untouched Eden tucked away in a bend of the Maine coast.  It gave him what his heart craved—­beauty, fragrance, stillness.  A few weather-beaten old men, digging clams, dragging lobster-pots, or handling a boat.  A few quiet women, busy with household affairs.  No one to have to talk to.  No one to ask him questions.  There was but one other visitor in the village, Grandma Baker told him, a young widow,—­“a nice common sort of a woman,” who was staying up the street with Mis’ Thatcher.

Mr. Johnston, as the gentleman called himself, hadn’t seen the “nice common sort of a woman” yet, though he had been here a whole week, and he wasn’t in the least curious about her.  He didn’t know that when you’re a “nice common sort of a woman” to these Maine folk, you’re receiving high praise from sturdy democrats.  The phrase, to him, called up a good, homely creature, amiably innocuous, placidly cow-like.

Mr. Johnston slept in a four-poster, under a patchwork quilt that aroused poignant memories.  At his own request he ate in a corner of the big kitchen, near the window opening upon the herb garden.  Already he had struck up a firm friendship with his brisk, strong old landlady.

“Fit in the war, didn’t ye?” asked the old lady, genially.

Mr. Johnston’s face took on a look of weariness and obstinacy.  Grandma Baker smiled cheerfully.

“Tell the truth and shame the devil,” she chirped.  “You fit, but you needn’t be scared I’ll ask you any questions about it.  I mind Abner, my husband, comin’ back from Virginia after he’d fit the hull dratted Civil War straight through and helped win it.  And he wouldn’t open his trap.  Couldn’t bear havin’ to talk about it.  Some men’s like that.  Ornery, o’ course, but you got to humor ’em.  You put me a hull lot in mind o’ my Abner.”  And she looked with great kindliness upon the taciturn person known to her as Mr. Johnston.  True to her word, she asked him no questions.  She fed him, and let him alone.

He was so weary, at first, that he didn’t want to do anything but lie under a tree idly for long drowsy hours, as he had lain under the trees on the edge of the River Swamp years before.  This Maine landscape, so rugged and yet so tender, had a brooding and introspective calm, as of a serene and strong old man who has lived a vigorous, simple, and pure life, and to the jangled nerves and tired mind of Peter Champneys it was like the touch of a healing hand.  With every day he felt his strength of mind and body returning, and the restless perturbation that had tormented him receding, fading.  These green and gracious trees, bathed in a lucent light, this sweet sea-wind, and the voice of the waters, a