The Captain, in his disgust at the unknown bookworm, fretted under the whole affair. "It's not in my line," he would growl. "It's a cursed bore. Poor Charlotte! she used to swim like a frog in the inlet there, when she was only eleven. She's little heart for swimming now, it's likely!" And would begin his search with re-doubled vigor. This house, a gray stone cottage of five or six rooms, in the most solitary part of the lee-coast, had been vacant for some time, and was to be sold cheap. Lufflin bought and furnished it in his own name; and then, as she directed, asked the Professor and his wife down to spend the Christmas holidays with him. He was anxious and awkward as a school-boy when they arrived the night before. "It was too tough a job for you to set me, Charlotte," he grumbled. "How was I to choose a home for a man that lives, they say, by the sight of his eyes and the hearing of his ears? Water's water to me, and rocks rocks,"--trotting after her as she went through the house in silence, ending the survey with two or three sharp, decisive nods, and a quick, pleased little laugh. "Satisfied? Yes, I am. Yes, I am. We've had a good many houses, Jerome and I; but this is home." The Captain understood her. In the morning, however, he felt all his doubts return. Mrs. Jacobus's quick, firm step sounded above, below him; presently she came in with a jug of yellow cream, and set it on the table, adjusting the dishes, putting a glass of holly in the middle, opening the window-curtains to let the cold, gray, wintry light fall on the white cloth and pretty blue china service. "Those oysters now?" said the Captain, anxiously. "Ann's a poor cook." "She's clean as a Shaker, though. But I broiled them myself,"--laughing to herself to see his relieved face. "They're all right, then, Charlotte?" "Yes." She would give her mind to the oysters, he knew. It had been her way to put a little of her brains and blood into all her jobs in life, finishing each with a self-satisfied little nod. No wonder that she was worn, now that she was a middle-aged woman. "She's lost something, Lotty has since I knew her," he thought, watching the light figure in its dark blue dress moving about; "but she's the right stuff for home use,"--with some vague idea in his old salt-water brain of delicate, incomplete faces suiting best with moonlight and country strolls, and of the sparkle of dinner-lights and brilliant eyes agreeing together, but that a face like Charlotte's was the one for the breakfast-table. The shrewd, kindly eyes, the color on her face, and the laugh came on you as fresh as a child's,--if her hair was a bit gray.