“Other little children
        Shall bring my boats ashore.”

That particular application just suddenly, occurred to me, but she inspired it.”

“You’re a born schoolma’am,” Insall laughed.

“I’m much too radical for a schoolmam,” she declared.  “No board of trustees would put up with me—­not even Silliston’s!  We’ve kept the faith, but we do move slowly, Brooks.  Even tradition grows, and sometimes our blindness here to changes, to modern, scientific facts, fairly maddens me.  I read her that poem of Moody’s—­you know it:—­

       ’Here, where the moors stretch free
        In the high blue afternoon,
        Are the marching sun and the talking sea.’

and those last lines:—­

       ’But thou, vast outbound ship of souls,
        What harbour town for thee? 
        What shapes, when thy arriving tolls,
        Shall crowd the banks to see? 
        Shall all the happy shipmates then
        Stand singing brotherly? 
        Or shall a haggard, ruthless few
        Warp her over and bring her to,
        While the many broken souls of me
        Fester down in the slaver’s pen,
        And nothing to say or do?’”

“I was sorry afterwards, I could see that she was tremendously excited.  And she made me feel as if I, too, had been battened down in that hold and bruised and almost strangled.  I often wonder whether she has got out of it into the light—­whether we can rescue her.”  Mrs. Maturin paused.

“What do you mean?” Insall asked.

“Well, it’s difficult to describe, what I feel—­she’s such a perplexing mixture of old New England and modernity, of a fatalism, and an aliveness that fairly vibrates.  At first, when she began to recover, I was conscious only of the vitality—­but lately I feel the other quality.  It isn’t exactly the old Puritan fatalism, or even the Greek, it’s oddly modern, too, almost agnostic, I should say,—­a calm acceptance of the hazards of life, of nature, of sun and rain and storm alike—­very different from the cheap optimism one finds everywhere now.  She isn’t exactly resigned—­I don’t say that—­I know she can be rebellious.  And she’s grateful for the sun, yet she seems to have a conviction that the clouds will gather again....  The doctor says she may leave the hospital on Monday, and I’m going to bring her over here for awhile.  Then,” she added insinuatingly, “we can collaborate.”

“I think I’ll go back to Maine,” Insall exclaimed.

“If you desert me, I shall never speak to you again,” said Mrs. Maturin.