“Well, I guess I know,” retorted the superintendent, flaring up. “I was out there yesterday with a level, an’ walked all over it.” “Must’er got yer feet wet, then, sir,” said the skipper, with a laugh, as he turned toward the door. “The tide’s been from eight inches to a foot higher ’n usual for three days past; it’s full-moon tides.” During the talk Aunty Bell and Mrs. Taft had slipped into the sitting-room, and the superintendent, finding himself alone, called to the skipper, and joined him on the garden walk. As the afternoon hours wore on, and no other callers came in,—Mrs. Taft having gone,—Aunty Bell brought a big basket, filled with an assortment of yarn stockings of varied stains and repairs, out to a chair on the porch, and made believe to herself that she was putting them in order for the captain when he should need a dry pair. Now and then she would stop, her hand in the rough stocking, her needle poised, her mind going back to the days when she first moved to Keyport, and this curly-haired girl from the fishing-village a mile or more away had won her heart. Since the death of that baby girl of long ago, Betty, somehow, had filled day by day all the deep corners of the sore heart, still aching from this earlier sorrow. When the girl’s mother died, a few months after Betty’s marriage, Aunty Bell had thrown a shawl over her head, and, going to Caleb’s cabin, had mounted the stairs to Betty’s little room and shut the door. With infinite tenderness she had drawn the girl’s head down on her own bosom, and had poured out to her all the mother’s love she had in her own heart, and had told her of that daughter of her dreams. Betty had not forgotten it, and among all those she knew on the shore road she loved Aunty Bell the best. There were few days in the week—particularly in the summer, when Caleb was away—that she was not doing something for Aunty Bell, her bright face and merry, ringing laugh filling the house and the little woman’s life,—an infectious, bubbling, girlish laugh that made it a delight to be with her. But a fresh thought, like a draft from an open door, rushed into Aunty Bell’s mind with a force that sent a shiver through her tender heart, and chilled every kind impulse. Suppose Caleb should turn his back on this girl wife of his. What then? Ought she to take her to her heart and brave it out with the neighbors? What sort of an example was it to other young women along the shore, Aunty Bell’s world? Could they, too, run off with any young fellows they met, and then come home and be forgiven? It was all very well for the captain,—he never stopped to think about these things,—that was his way; but what was _her_ duty in the matter? Would it not be better in the end for Betty if she were made to realize her wrong-doing, and to suffer for it?