Part 44

The Perkins front door opened and Abijah the Brave came out hand in hand with his Fair Emmajane.

They walked through the orchard, the eyes of the old couple following them from the window, and just as they disappeared down the green slope that led to the riverside the gray coat sleeve encircled the blue barege waist.

Rebecca, quivering with instant sympathy and comprehension, hid her face in her hands.

“Emmy has sailed away and I am all alone in the little harbor,” she thought.

It was as if childhood, like a thing real and visible, were slipping down the grassy river banks, after Abijah and Emma Jane, and disappearing like them into the moon-lit shadows of the summer night.

“I am all alone in the little harbor,” she repeated; “and oh, I wonder, I wonder, shall I be afraid to leave it, if anybody ever comes to carry me out to sea!”