The evening was passed in silence. Peter smoked, Maria mended, and Osgood reflected. A violent storm arose in the night, which lasted three days. They were improved by Maria and Peter in overhauling garden-seeds in the garret, and in setting up a leach-tub in the wood-house. Osgood assisted. When he was alone with Maria she talked to him of the boy who was lost at sea, and of the girl who died in childhood; with the hungry eyes of a bereaved mother she looked upon him, and his heart was touched with a new tenderness. When he was alone with Peter the old man sounded the depths of the young man's soul with wise, pathetic, quaint speech; he went over the ground of his own life, which had been passed on the spot where he now was, with the exception of several mackerel voyages, and one in a merchant vessel to some of the southern ports of Europe. But when together Peter and Maria never talked with Osgood on personal matters. Between them a marital silence was kept, which was more expressive than the conjugal volubility which ordinarily exists; it proved that they had passed through profounder experiences. When the storm ceased Peter went to the station for his Boston newspaper, which he read to Maria, who took it afterward and read it over to herself. Brother Quakers, Peter's neighbors, who lived out of sight, dropped in from time to time to exchange a word with Maria, or hold talks outside with Peter, with one foot in the rut and the other on the wagon-step. The present subject of interest, Osgood discovered, was the approaching Quarterly Meeting, and the mackerel fishery. Peter asked him to accompany himself and Maria to the town where the meeting was to be. They breakfasted at sunrise, when the day arrived, in full dress--Peter in a snuff-colored suit, and Maria in a series of brown articles--dress, shawl, and bonnet. They started in good spirits in an open wagon, with an improvised seat for Peter in front. Beyond a belt of pine woods stood the meeting-house, and a mile beyond the meeting-house lay the town, before a vast bay. Osgood drove alone into the town, and spent several hours there. He visited the shops to find some trifle for Maria, and then went through the town down to the shore. How happy he grew in the pure wind and the gay morning light! The gulls rode over the foaming wave-crests and dipped into their green walls, and hawks swooped between the steadfast sky and heaving deep. The sea traveled round and round before his eyes with a mad joy, and tempted him to plunge into it. He wrote his name in the heavy sand with a broken shell, and the water filtered out the letters; then he paved it in pebbles with the word _Strength_. Peter and Maria were waiting for him when he returned to the meeting-house with the wagon. "Thee has been skylarking," she said. "After something for you," he answered, putting in her hand a handsome work-basket. "Has thee so much money that thee must waste it on me, Osgood?"