"Mr. Hibbs, I must speak too, and I pray you say no more till I have done. The sentiments you express, the which--oh _bother_! There goes my thread again and I wasn't even pulling at it, they needn't to make it so miserable weak, do they? The sentiments--look, Mr. Hibbs: when we moved to Dorchester last autumn, I found there a place on the shore, just beyond reach of the high tides, a pretty place, a kind of--what was it you said?--a sanctuary of loneliness, at any rate I made it one. The rocks hide it from the house, from the land; 'tis like a room overlooking the open waters, where all the ships from the south must pass when they come in for the harbor, and I go there--oh, whenever I may. My mother thinks I'm looking for seashells or other such employment suited to children, and so I do bring in any pretty ones I find--and then throw them away secret-like, la, to make room for more--why, I'm a deceiving small beast, Mr. Hibbs, learned deception young, marry did I, I often wonder that anyone can put up with me. Well--even last winter, if it wasn't outright storming, I'd bundle up in my coat and go out there. The rocks break the wind. You can look a long way out.... I told Reuben about this. He understood--well, of course he did. One expects understanding from Reuben, I don't quite know why." "I am not certain that I myself understand you, Charity." "I must say more then?... But perhaps you will tell me, as my mother would, that at my years I can know nothing of love, and yet I do.... Sometimes I'll see a sail that looks from a distance like the _Artemis_. But I watch any sail that appears, because--because who can say what manner of ship it will be that brings him home?--and now you are weeping, but Mr. Hibbs, I never intended----" "Nay, I--am not. The fireplace a'n't drawing properly--I'll push these logs further back." "I am a beast." "Hush!... I think he will come home, Charity--older, as you are, but what you saw in him will not be greatly changed.... But I may be your gray-headed counselor, and--friend?" "Of course. You aren't gray." "Soon enough." "What is it, Mr. Hibbs--what _is_ it that doth compel one to--eh, as they say, to give away the whole heart to another? I would be better, I would be happier, I suppose, if I...." "I could wish for mine own sake that I knew the answer to that. Why, Charity, it seems we love where we must and no help for it." "I remember I was not happy, very far from it, a year and more ago, when I was a silly child, had not even met him, indeed had none to love but--oh, poor Sultan. Clarissa of course, but it seems to me I never knew I loved her until I lost her, only took her for granted like sunlight until the day she was no longer there." "Sultan?"