There was very little talk between them as they walked on side by side, for Tom’s heart was too full of that which was upon his mind to say much with his lips; so they went down the road into the hollow, past the old mill, over the bridge that crossed Stony Brook just beyond, up the hill on the other side, past Whiteley’s farm-house, and so to the further crest of the hill that overlooked Rocky Creek Valley beyond. There they stopped and stood beside the fence at the roadside, looking down into the valley beneath them. It was a fair sight that lay spread out before their eyes—field beyond field, farm-house, barn and orchard, all bathed in the soft yellow sunshine, saving here and there where a cloud cast a purple shadow that moved slowly across the hills and down into the valleys. “Isn’t it beautiful?” said Patty, as she leaned against the rough fence, looking out across the valley, while the wind stirred the hair at her cheeks and temples. “Yes; it is;” said Tom, “it’s a goodly world to live in, Patty.” Then silence fell between them. “There’s the old Naylor homestead,” said Patty at last. “Yes; I see it,” said Tom, shortly, glancing as he spoke in the direction which she pointed. Then, after a while, he continued, “What a queer man Isaac Naylor is!” “I don’t see anything queer about him,” said Patty, looking down at the toe of her shoe. “Well, I never saw a man like him.” “He is a very good worthy man, and everybody respects him,” said Patty, warmly. “Oh! I don’t deny that,” said Tom, with a pang at his heart. “Thee couldn’t truthfully deny it if thee would, Thomas,” said Patty. “I’m only a rough sea-faring man,” said Tom. “I don’t know that any one respects me very much.” He waited a moment, but Patty said nothing; then he went on again: “For all that, I’d rather be a man of thirty at thirty, and not as dead to all things as though I was a man of eighty. Isaac Naylor is more like a man of eighty than he is like one of thirty. No one would take him to be only five years older than I am.” “I don’t know any man that I respect as much as I do Isaac Naylor,” said Patty. “I don’t like to hear thee talk against him as thee does. He has never spoken ill of thee.” “Thee need never be afraid of my saying anything more against him,” said Tom, bitterly; “I see that thee likes him more than I thought thee did. I might have known it too, from the way that he has been visiting thee during this last month or two.” “Why shouldn’t he visit me, Thomas?” “The Lord knows!” She made no answer to this, and presently Tom spoke again. “I’m going off to sea before long, Patty,” said he, for it seemed to him just then that the sea was a fit place for him to be. Patty made no answer to this; she was picking busily at the fringe of the scarf that hung about her shoulders. “How soon is thee going, Thomas?” said she at last. “Oh! I don’t know; in three or four weeks, I guess. It doesn’t matter, does it?” Patty made no reply.