LIFE IN THE LIGHT-HOUSE. 369 



favors than I?" and avoids and declines just what the 

 judgment says is needed. " Shall I let him know I love 

 him, and overtly respond to advances he has been mak- 

 ing ?" and the pride acts a lie, leaving the soul longing, 

 sighing, hoping for that other soul that was abashed, and 

 has departed. 



Lou had a little foot, and it was laced over its high 

 arch with an Indian moccasin. The wrought buckskin 

 became the foot, as the foot was tapping the uppermost 

 step in the lantern, while its owner, with her arm on 

 the window-sill, sat looking seaward. Here was her 

 accustomed seat as the sun fired the everglades at his sit- 

 ting, and left the ocean still as a child tired with his 

 romping, and every evening, for the month that she had 

 lived at the Key, found her in the same spot 'dreaming 

 away the twilight, and when it was dark brightening the 

 eyes of the passing mariners with the expectant flash of 

 the great lantern. 



The spits of sand that ran up and down along the coast 

 were margined with little rollers that broke in foam along 

 their seaward side, and then fell back to renew the 

 attempt, while doewitches and sand-pipers with nimble 

 tread pursued them back and forth. The blue line of the 

 horizon, where it cut the roseate sky, was marked by the 

 sail of a ship. It was not the ways of the shore birds 

 that Lou was watching ; her mind was not following the 

 path of the ship. She was conning over her past few 

 years of life. Figures came up to her misty eyes, dead 

 friends, and other homes, strong men, and patches of 



16* 



