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By Root 862 0

in a flood out of the broad, low windows of the old stone house. At ten Nora had disappeared. Anne was a little tired of the noise and merriment. She slipped through the hall to a back door that opened almost on the bay and flitted down a flight of rocky steps to the shore, past a little grove of pointed firs. How divine the cool salt air was after the sultry evening! How exquisite the silver patterns of moonlight on the bay! How dreamlike that ship which had sailed at the rising of the moon, and was now approaching the harbour bar! It was a night when you might expect to stray into a dance of mermaidens.

Nora was hunched up in the grim, black shadow of a rock by the water’s edge, looking more like a thunderstorm than ever.

‘May I sit with you for a while?’ asked Anne. ‘I’m a little tired of dancing, and it’s a shame to miss this wonderful night. I envy you with the whole harbour for a backyard like this.’

‘What would you feel like at a time like this if you had no beau?’ asked Nora abruptly and sullenly. ‘Or any likelihood of one,’ she added still more sullenly.

‘I think it must be your own fault if you haven’t,’ said Anne, sitting down beside here.

Nora found herself telling Anne her troubles. There was always something about Anne that made people tell her their troubles.

‘You’re saying that to be polite, of course. You needn’t. You know as well as I do that I’m not a girl men are likely to fall in love with. I’m the “plain Miss Nelson”. It isn’t my fault that I haven’t anybody. I couldn’t stand it in there any longer. I had to come down here and just let myself be unhappy. I’m tired of smiling and being agreeable to everyone, and pretending not to care when they give me digs about not being married. I’m not going to pretend any longer. I do care. I care horribly. I’m the only one of the Nelson girls left. Five of us are married, or will be tomorrow. You heard Aunt Mouser casting my age up to me at the dinner-table. And I heard her telling Mother before dinner that I had “aged quite a bit” since last summer. Of course I have. I’m twenty-eight. In twelve more years I’ll be forty. How will I endure life at forty, Anne, if I haven’t got any roots of my own by that time?’

‘I wouldn’t mind what a foolish old woman said.’

‘Oh, wouldn’t you? You haven’t a nose like mine. I’ll be as beaky as Father in ten more years. And I suppose you wouldn’t care either if you’d waited years for a man to propose – and he just wouldn’t?’

‘Oh, yes, I think I would care about that.’

‘Well, that’s my predicament exactly. Oh, I know you’ve heard of Jim Wilcox and me. It’s such an old story. He’s been hanging round me for years, but he’s never said anything about getting married.’

‘Do you care for him?’

‘Of course I care. I’ve always pretended I didn’t; but, as I’ve told you, I’m through with pretending. And he’s never been near me since last January. We had a fight – but we’ve had hundreds of fights. He always came back before, but he hasn’t come this time – and he never will. He doesn’t want to. Look at his house across the bay, shining in the moonlight. I suppose he’s there – and I’m here – and all the harbour between us. That’s the way it always will be. It – it’s terrible! And I can’t do a thing.’

‘If you sent for him wouldn’t he come back?’

‘Send for him! Do you think I’d do that? I’d die first. If he wants to come there’s nothing to prevent him coming. If he doesn’t I don’t want him to… Yes, I do! I do! I love Jim – and I want to get married. I want to have a home of my own, and be “Mrs”, and shut Aunt Mouser’s mouth. Oh, I wish I could be Barnabas or Saul for a few moments, just to swear at her! If she calls me “poor Nora” again I’ll throw a scuttle at her. But, after all, she only says what everybody thinks. Mother has despaired long ago of my ever marrying, so she leaves me alone; but the rest rag me. I hate Sally. Of course, I’m dreadful – but I hate her. She’s getting a nice husband and a lovely home. It isn’t fair she should have everything and I nothing. She isn’t better or cleverer or much prettier than me – only luckier.