“I don’t really think he is going away just for the fun of it,” I objected.

At this moment Susie Sweetapple burst into the room like a Black Hand bomb.  It is one of her little ways.

“Parson’s coming,” she declared, breathlessly, and nodded her head violently to emphasize the importance of her statement.

“I suppose it is Mr. Barnett,” I said.  “They expected him back to-day.  He has been away to a place they call Edward’s Bay.”

“I presume it is,” assented Daddy.  “His arrival appears to cause the same sort of excitement on this population as the fire-engines produce among the juveniles of New York, judging from Susie’s display.”

The girl had run to the door and opened it widely.  Then she backed away before a little man who removed a clerical hat that was desperately green from exposure to the elements, and which revealed a shock of hair of a dull flaxen hue doubtless washed free of any pigment by salt spray and rain.  His garments were also of distinctive cut, though they frankly exposed well-meant though unvailing efforts at matching buttons and repairing small rents.  He bowed to me, his thin face expanding into a most gentle and somewhat professional smile, and he expressed commiseration at the sight of Daddy in his bed.

“I hope I don’t intrude upon your privacy,” he said, with an intonation just as refined as that of his wife, though scarcely as sweet.  “I took the liberty of calling, having been informed of your very distressing accident.  I fear you have not finished your repast, and perhaps I had better...”

“Do come in and take a seat,” I told him.  “It is ever so kind of you to call.”

“I am very glad to see you, sir,” said Daddy, very cordially.  “We have not had many opportunities to welcome visitors here, and even our doctor is too busy a man to pay long calls.”

“Yes, quite so.  Indeed he is at times exceedingly busy.  We think him an extremely nice young man; quite delightful, I assure you, and he does a great deal of good.”

The man was rubbing his thin little hands together, with his head cocked to one side, looking like an intellectual and benevolent sparrow.

I must say that I was impressed by him.  From conversations with the fishermen I had gathered the impression that Mr. Barnett was a perfectly fearless man on land and water, and I had imagined an individual cast in a rather heroic mold.

It hardly seemed possible that this little parson was the subject of the tales I had heard, for he bore a tiny look of timidity and, I was sorry to see, of overwork and underfeeding.  But the latter may have been dyspepsia.

“This is rather a large field to which we have been called,” he continued.  “It gives one very fine opportunities as well as some difficulties to contend with.  But of course we keep on striving.  It is not missionary work, you understand, for the people are all very firm believers.  It is merely a question of lending a helping hand, to the best of one’s ability.”