“Oh!” Olive exclaimed, breathless and slightly concerned. “Indeed if I saw you, Honora; the wind was that strong pulling at a person.” “What does it matter?” Honora replied. She was wrapped from throat to hem in a cinnamon colored velvet cloak that, fluttering, showed a lining of soft, quilted yellow. In the flood of morning her skin was flawless; her delicate lips and hazel eyes held the faint mockery that was the visible sign of her disturbing quality. She laid a hand, in a short, furred kid glove, on Olive's arm. “I am so pleased about Jason's success,” she continued, in a clear insistent voice. “You must be mad with anxiety to have him back. It's the most romantic thing in the world. Aren't you thrilled to the soul?” “I'm glad to--to know he's been preserved,” Olive stammered, confused by Honora's frank speech. “You sound exactly as if he were a jar of quinces,” the other answered impatiently; “and not a true lover coming back from California with bags of gold.” Olive's confusion deepened to painful embarrassment at the indelicate term lover. She wondered, hotly red, how Honora could go on so, and made a motion to continue on her way. But the other's fingers closed and held her. “I wonder, Olive,” she said more thoughtfully, “if I know you well enough, if you will allow me, to give you some advice. It is this--don't be too rigid with Jason when he gets back. For nearly ten years he's been out in a life very different from Cottarsport, and he must have changed in that time. Here we stay almost the same--ten or twenty or fifty years is nothing really. The fishing boats come in, they may have different names, but they are the same. We stop and talk, Honora Canderay and Olive Stanes, and years before and years later women will stand here and do the same with beliefs no wider than your finger. But it isn't like that outside; and Jason will have that advantage of us--things really very small, but which have always seemed tremendous here, will mean no more to him than they are worth. He will be careless, perhaps, of your most cherished ideas; and, if you are to meet him fairly, you must try to see through his eyes as well as your own. Truly I want you to be happy, Olive; I want every one in Cottarsport to be as happy... as they can.” Olive's embarrassment increased: it was impossible to know what Honora Canderay meant by her last words, in that echoing voice. Nevertheless, her independence of spirit, the long nourished tenets of the abhorrence of sin, asserted themselves in the face of even Honora's directions. “I trust,” she replied stiffly, “that Jason has been given grace to walk in the path of God----” She stopped with lips parted, her breath laboring with shock, at the interruption pronounced in ringing accents. Honora Canderay said: “Grace be damned!” Olive backed away with her hands pressed to her cheeks. In the midst of her shuddering surprise she realized how much the other resembled her father, the captain.