“I never want to hear Joanna laughed about,” she said anxiously. “Nor I,” answered Mrs. Fosdick reassuringly. “She was crossed in love,—that was all the matter to begin with; but as I look back, I can see that Joanna was one doomed from the first to fall into a melancholy. She retired from the world for good an’ all, though she was a well-off woman. All she wanted was to get away from folks; she thought she wasn’t fit to live with anybody, and wanted to be free. Shell-heap Island come to her from her father, and first thing folks knew she’d gone off out there to live, and left word she didn’t want no company. ’Twas a bad place to get to, unless the wind an’ tide were just right; ’twas hard work to make a landing.” “What time of year was this?” I asked. “Very late in the summer,” said Mrs. Fosdick. “No, I never could laugh at Joanna, as some did. She set everything by the young man, an’ they were going to marry in about a month, when he got bewitched with a girl ’way up the bay, and married her, and went off to Massachusetts. He wasn’t well thought of,—there were those who thought Joanna’s money was what had tempted him; but she’d given him her whole heart, an’ she wa’n’t so young as she had been. All her hopes were built on marryin’, an’ havin’ a real home and somebody to look to; she acted just like a bird when its nest is spoilt. The day after she heard the news she was in dreadful woe, but the next she came to herself very quiet, and took the horse and wagon, and drove fourteen miles to the lawyer’s, and signed a paper givin’ her half of the farm to her brother. They never had got along very well together, but he didn’t want to sign it, till she acted so distressed that he gave in. Edward Todd’s wife was a good woman, who felt very bad indeed, and used every argument with Joanna; but Joanna took a poor old boat that had been her father’s and lo’ded in a few things, and off she put all alone, with a good land breeze, right out to sea. Edward Todd ran down to the beach, an’ stood there cryin’ like a boy to see her go, but she was out o’ hearin’. She never stepped foot on the mainland again long as she lived.” “How large an island is it? How did she manage in winter?” I asked.