maturity and the solid glow of her red-hipped matron-hood. And on the left again, still facing south, is the insistent sea, dragging down its pebbly beach, and on the right, the dimpling harbor, reddened, for him who is wise enough to wander that way at sunset, with flaming banners of the sky. To cross the harbor again, and follow the mainland back to a point nearly opposite the lighthouse of the Neck, is to find, neighbored by the old graveyard, ruined and grassy Fort Sewall, to-day the lounging-place for village great-grandfathers, or vantage-ground for overlooking a yacht race, but in 1742, when Charles Henry Frankland was Collector of the Port of Boston, just a building. And one day in the previous year, the gallant young Collector, smartly dressed in the fine feathers of the period, and no doubt humming a song,—since he seems to have fulfilled all the conditions of an interesting young galliard,—came riding down on some business connected with the prospective fort. He stopped at the Fountain Inn for a draught,—not so innocent, perhaps, as that from the clear well still springing near the spot,—and, scrubbing the tavern floor, there knelt before him, in lovely disarray, the sweet beggar-maid destined to be crowned at once by the favor of this careless Cophetua. Let that phrase be swiftly amended! Agnes Surriage was no beggar-maid, but the honest daughter of hard-working fisher-folk, and patient under her own birthright of toil. Her beauty was something rare and delicate, calculated to arrest the eye and chain the heart; the simple dignity of her demeanor was no more to be affected through her menial task than a rose by clouded skies. Her fair feet were naked, and blushed not at their poverty, but Frankland’s heart ached with pity of them, and he closed her fingers over a coin, to buy shoes and stockings. Then he gave her “good-day,” and rode away,—but not to forget her; only to muse on her grace, and to start at the vision of her eyes, shining between him and his bills of merchandise and lading. Again he came riding that way, and again he found her, still barefooted; but when he reproached her for having failed to put his coin to its destined use, she blushed, and answered in the homely dialect of Marblehead, which yet had no power over the music of her voice, that the shoes and stockings were bought, but that she kept them to wear to meeting. And now the young Collector went often and more often to Marblehead, until the day came when he obtained her parents’ permission to become her guardian, and take her away to be educated. So the wild bird entered voluntarily into the life of cages, to learn the demeanor and song-notes which were approved by the fashionable Boston of the day. [Illustration: “again he came riding”] [Illustration]