I have much to tell thee, my friend! and of a nature never before known in these woods and by this water. Last night, at sunset, I stood on the Point waiting for my father to come in from his round about the island, when suddenly a boat shot out from Silver Stream and came on toward me, rowed to the accompaniment of a song I never heard. I stood waiting, for the voices were beautiful, one high and strong (and as I listened, it flashed upon me that my father had said the 'cello is like a woman singing), another, deep and rich. There were two men, as I saw when they neared me, and two women; and all were young. The men--what were they like? I hardly know, except that they made me feel ashamed of my roughness. And the women! One was yellow-haired and pale; she had a fairy build, I think, and her shoulders were like the birch-tree. Her head was bare, and the sun--he had stayed to do it--had turned all the threads to gold. She was so white! white as the tiarella in the spring. When I saw her, I bent forward; they looked my way, and I drew back behind the tree. I had been curious, and I was ashamed; it seemed to me they might stop and say, "Who is this fellow who lives in the woods and stares at people like an owl by night?" But the oars dipped, and the boat and song went on. The song! if I but knew it! It called my feet to dancing. It was like laughter and the play of the young squirrels. I watched for them to go back, and in an hour they did, still singing in jubilant chorus; and after that came my father. As soon as I saw him, I knew something had happened. I have never seen him so sad, so weary. He put his hand on my shoulder, after we had beached the boat and were walking up to the cabin. "Francis," he said, "our good days are over." "Why?" I asked. It appeared to me, for some reason, that they had just begun; perhaps because the night was so fragrant and the stars so near. The world had never seemed so homelike and so warm. I knew how a bird feels in its own soft nest. "Because some people have come to camp on the Bay Shore. I saw their tents, and asked Pierre. He says they are here for the summer. Fool! fool that I was, not to buy that land!" "But perhaps we shall like them!" I said, and my voice choked in the saying, the world seemed so good, so strange. He grasped my shoulder, and his fingers felt like steel. "Boy! boy!" he whispered. For a minute, I fancied he was crying, as I cried once, years ago, when my rabbit died. "I knew it would come," he said. "Kismet! I bow the neck. Put thy foot upon it gently, if may be."