"We sat within the farm-house old, Whose windows, looking o'er the bay, Gave to the sea-breeze, damp and cold, An easy entrance night and day. "Not far away we saw the port, The strange old-fashioned silent town, The light-house, the dismantled fort, The wooden houses quaint and brown." The light-keeper, whom I found at home, indulged me in a few moments' chat. He could not account, he said, for the extraordinary predilection of the Light-house Board for whitewash. Dwelling, covered way, and tower were each and all besmeared; and the keeper seemed not overconfident that he might not soon receive an order to put on a coat of it himself. He did not object to the summer, but in winter his berth was not so pleasant. I already felt convinced of this. To a question he replied that Government estimated his services at five hundred dollars per annum; and he pointedly asked me how he was to support a family on the stipend? Yet he must keep his light trimmed and burning; for if that goes out, so does he. All the light-houses are supplied with lard-oil, which burns without incrusting the wick of the lamp; but the keeper objected that it was always chilled in cold weather, and that he usually had to take it into the dwelling and heat it on the stove before it could be used. A good deal of moisture collects on the plate-glass windows of the lantern when the wind is off-shore, but if it be off the land the glass is dry. In very cold weather, when it becomes coated with frost, the light is visible but a short distance at sea. To remedy this evil, spirits of wine are furnished to keepers, but does not wholly remove the difficulty. [Illustration: DRYING FISH, LITTLE HARBOR.] Afterward we spoke of the commerce of Marblehead. The only craft now in port were five or six ballast-lighters that had wintered in the upper harbor; with this exception it was deserted. The keeper had been master of a fishing vessel. I could not help remarking to him on this ominous state of things. "I have seen as many as a hundred and twenty vessels lying below us here, getting ready for a cruise on the Banks," he said. "And now?" "Now there are not more than fifteen sail that hail out of here." "So that fishing, as a business--" "Is knocked higher than a kite." Will it ever come down again?