I was going to France for the whole long summer that year, and the more I thought of such an absence from these simple scenes the more dear and delightful they became. Santa Teresa says that the true proficiency of the soul is not in much thinking, but in much loving, and sometimes I believed that I had never found love in its simplicity as I had found it at Dunnet Landing in the various hearts of Mrs. Blackett and Mrs. Todd and William. It is only because one came to know them, these three, loving and wise and true, in their own habitations. Their counterparts are in every village in the world, thank heaven, and the gift to one’s life is only in its discernment. I had only lived in Dunnet until the usual distractions and artifices of the world were no longer in control, and I saw these simple natures clear. “The happiness of life is in its recognitions. It seems that we are not ignorant of these truths, and even that we believe them; but we are so little accustomed to think of them, they are so strange to us—” “Well now, deary me!” said Mrs. Todd, breaking into exclamation; “I’ve got to fly round—I thought he’d have to beat; he can’t sail far on that tack, and he won’t be in for a good hour yet—I expect he’s made every arrangement, but he said he shouldn’t go up after Esther unless the weather was good, and I declare it did look doubtful this morning.” I remembered Esther’s weather-worn face. She was like a Frenchwoman who had spent her life in the fields. I remembered her pleasant look, her childlike eyes, and thought of the astonishment of joy she would feel now in being taken care of and tenderly sheltered from wind and weather after all these years. They were going to be young again now, she and William, to forget work and care in the spring weather. I could hardly wait for the boat to come to land, I was so eager to see his happy face. “Cake an’ wine I’m goin’ to set ’em out!” said Mrs. Todd. “They won’t stop to set down for an ordered meal, they’ll want to get right out home quick’s they can. Yes, I’ll give ’em some cake an’ wine—I’ve got a rare plum-cake from my best receipt, and a bottle o’ wine that the old Cap’n Denton of all give me, one of two, the day I was married, one we had and one we saved, and I’ve never touched it till now. He said there wa’n’t none like it in the State o’ Maine.”