"Do you know yet what form you wish your individuality to take?" he asked cautiously. "Not exactly," was the frank response. "What I object to, is that a girl isn't allowed to become interested in anything that is worth while. She is given her education and 'brought out,' after which, whether she likes it or not, she seems to be placed in a position of waiting for some man to come along to marry her. Why can't she be allowed to do something, just as a boy is, until she finds out whether she wants to marry or not?" "That would be a fatal error!" Huntington explained with mock gravity, hoping to lighten the serious turn the conversation had taken. "If any such idea gained ground marriage would become the exception rather than the rule. How many girls do you think would ever marry if they were permitted to find any other real interest in life?" "But I'm serious, Mr. Huntington," Merry protested, showing that she felt hurt by his flippancy. "I couldn't bear to be a nonentity all my days. Think of realizing one's own ambitions only by marrying a man who could fulfil them! I could not be happy unless I contributed my share to the real life which we jointly lived." "You could do it," Huntington said with conviction, "but not every woman could.--See that old man bowing to us. Suppose we go and speak with him. Do you mind?" "Every one is so courteous here," she exclaimed as they crossed the narrow road. "I never pass one of the natives without receiving a greeting of some kind, and the children are forever shyly forcing flowers or fruit upon me. It makes one love the place." The old man was overjoyed to have attracted attention. He hobbled forward with difficulty as they approached, and bowed as low as his infirmities would permit. "You are welcome to Bermuda," he said with a cracked, high-pitched voice. "We are pleased to have strangers visit us." "Your visitors remain strangers but a little while," Huntington answered him, "because of your hospitality." "Won't you come in and sit down?" the old man urged. "Not to-day, thank you; but if we should not be intruding it would be a pleasure to return some other time." "You could not intrude, sir," he insisted; "for I am only waiting." "Waiting?" Huntington questioned. "Yes; waiting for that," and he pointed to a tall cedar growing inside the yard, beside which was the stump of another tree. "He wants to tell us something," Merry whispered. "They were planted there sixty years ago," the old man continued, "the two of them. They were little slips, stuck in our wedding-cake as is our custom here, when my wife and I were married. We put them in the ground, for everything takes root in this soil, and they grew side by side for fifty years. Then that one fell"--pointing to the stump,--"and the next day my wife was taken sick and died. We made her coffin from the cedar wood of that tree, sir. Now I'm waiting for the other one to fall. That was ten years ago now, so it won't be long."