"I wish you would be more neighborly," she said, when he rose to go; "there are so few men in my set whom I can speak to as freely as you, and besides I want to watch your progress toward an editorial chair. Forget your old grudge, and let us be good friends once more." And when he was gone, and she ready to retire, she looked long and earnestly at a photograph of him she had scarce glanced at thrice in three years. "I wish he were rich," she sighed; "what a delightful lover he would make!" CHAPTER XXXVIII THE END OF AN IDYL Rockhaven, a colony by itself, had slowly increased from its one family starting-point until more than two hundred called it home. In doing this it had, to a certain extent, sustained the individuality of its progenitor, Captain Carver; a strictly honest, God-fearing descendant of the Puritans; Baptist in denomination, who regarded work and economy as religious precepts, home building as a law of God, and strict morality and total immersion the only avenues to salvation. Long before the little church was built he gathered the few families about him each Sunday, while he read selections and then led them in prayer. It was his indomitable religious will, as well as money, that erected the small church, and for years he led services there, praying that the time might come, and population as well, sufficient to induce a regularly ordained minister to officiate instead. It did, for he lived to a ripe old age and the satisfaction of his hopes, and to be buried on the sloping hillside back of it. Also to the glory of having "Founder of Rockhaven" inscribed on his tombstone. He was of Scotch descent, which accounted for a certain latent taste in his great-granddaughter, Mona Hutton. Though stern as the granite cliffs of the island in his religious connections, regarding works without faith and morality, without conviction as of little value, the shadow of his mantle in time gave way to a more charitable Christianity. And though the offshoot of his church, the Free Will Baptist of Northaven, was never recognized by the elect of Rockhaven, intermarriages and a mutuality of interests reduced its separation in creed to one in name only. Then, too, the isolation of the island resulted in the growth of the feudal instinct and a tacit leadership, vested in one man whose opinion and advice was by common consent accepted as law and gospel, and to whom all disputes were left for final settlement. Captain Carver had been this authority at the start, others had succeeded him, and when Winn Hardy came to the island Jess Hutton held the sceptre. All this is but history, pertinent merely to show how it came about that Winn won his way so easily, and those otherwise hard-headed islanders followed Jess Hutton's lead without question. Winn won him at the start, and the rest without effort.