"Lookee here now, Gran!" positively, laying down the pipe to give effect to his words; "you're killin' yerself, you are. Keep a-trottin' here all winter, an' what sort of a report of yerself'll yer make to Derrick by spring? When that 'ere letter comes, if come it do, I've said I'd put on my cut an' run up with it. See there!"--pulling out her thin calico skirt before the Doctor,--"soaked, she is." "Thee's kind, Joseph, but thee don't know,"--drawing her frock back with a certain dignity. "When my boy's handwrite comes, I must be here. I learned writin' on purpose that I might read it first,"--turning to Mary. "How long has your boy been gone?" asked Miss Defourchet, heedless of Joseph's warning "Hush-h!" "Twenty years, come Febuary," eagerly volunteered one or two voices by the window. "She's never heerd a word in that time, an' she never misses a mail-day, but she's expectin'," added one, with a coarse laugh. "None o' that, Sam Venners," said Joe, sharply. "If so be as Dirk said he'd come, be it half-a-hunder' years, he'll stan' to 't. I knowed Dirk. Many's the clam we toed out o' th' inlet yonner. He's not the sort to hang round, gnawin' out the old folk's meat-pot, as some I cud name. He"---- "I'll go, if thee'll let me apast," said the old woman, humbly curtsying to the men, who now jammed up the doorway. "It's a cussed shame, Venners," said Joe, when she was out. "Why can't yer humor the old gran a bit? She's the chicken-heartedest woman ever I knowed," explanatory to Miss Defourchet, "an' these ten years she's been mad-like, waitin' for that hang-dog son of hers to come back." Mary followed her out on the stoop, where she stood, her ragged green umbrella up, her sharp little face turned anxiously to the far sea-line. "Bad! bad!" she muttered, looking at Mary. "The storm? Yes. But you ought not to be out in such weather," kindly, putting her furred hand on the skinny arm. The woman smiled,--a sweet, good-humored smile it was, in spite of her meagre, hungry old face. "Why, look there, young woman,"--pulling up her sleeve, and showing the knotted tendons and thick muscles of her arm. "I'm pretty tough, thee sees. There's not a boatman in Ocean County could pull an oar with me when I was a gell, an' I'm tough yet,"--hooking her sleeve again. The smile haunted Miss Defourchet; where had she seen it before? "Was Derrick strongly built?"--idly wishing to recall it. "Thee's a stranger; maybe thee has met my boy?"--turning on her sharply. "No, that's silly,"--the sad vagueness coming back into the faded eyes. After a pause,--"Derrick, thee said? He was short, the lad was,--but with legs and arms as tender and supple as a wild-cat's. I loss much of my strength when he was born; it was wonderful, for a woman, before; I giv it to him. I'm glad of that! I thank God that I giv it to him!"--her voice sinking, and growing wilder and faster. "Why! why!"