There is a pretty story of one old captain—men commanded their ships at twenty and were old at forty—whose treasure was a little daughter. She had a maimed foot that must undergo a cruel cure, and for a bribe she had been promised dancing-lessons, the dearest wish of her childish heart. Her ordeal passed, the captain kept faith with her. Through a long winter, while he waited for his ship, in starlight or snow he set the child upon his shoulder and bore her to the hall where the old fiddler taught the boys and girls their steps, and there danced with her, envied because of such attendance, until the foot grew strong and she, who had been shy from the misfortune that had marked her difference in the children’s world, blossomed into the merriest little jade of all the company. And for him, all the watery highways he must travel were only the road to lead him home. There, his adventure achieved, he lived healthily upon the produce of his farm; poverty, the city kinsman was ready to aver, his only fault. But he had more than enough for the life he had chosen; his manners were as polished and his speeches fine as if he trod the pavement instead of driving about his beloved country roads—he had paced too many miles of deck to walk a rod ashore. He had rich memories, and discrimination in choosing the elements essential to happiness. What should a man need more? And when the end came, and in the graveyard with an outlook to blue water from the hillside where the willows drooped low, he lay beside her whom he loved best, the epitaph there might be, for her: “During a long life she performed all her duties with fidelity and zeal, and died in the triumph of Christian faith and resignation.” And for him: “His integrity of character gave him an honorable distinction among his fellow citizens: his private virtues endeared him to all: his end was peace.” II We do well, now and again, to make friends with another time than our own; and by good fortune some of us, then, may find a path to the Cape of pines and dunes where lay a township recreated for us in twilight stories by the nursery fire. Here peaked-roof houses look out over “the lilac trees which bear no fruit but a pleasant smell,” willow and silvery poplars meet above the road, and here genial spirits populate the brave old time—days when deep-water sailors hailed the little town as home, and women, demure, pure-faced, neat-footed, kept the houses as spotless as their hearts. [Illustration: THE PASTURE BARS]