Nobody

"Nobody's gone," said Mrs. Marx; "except one thick man and one thinone; and neither of 'em counts."

"Are the Caruthers here?"

"Every man of 'em."

"There is only one man of them; unless you count Mr. Lenox."

"I don't count him. I count that fair-haired chap. All the rest of 'emare stay in' for him."

"Staying for him!" repeated Mrs. Wishart.

"That's what they say. They seem to take it sort o' hard, that Tom's sofond of Appledore."

Mrs. Wishart was silent a minute, and then she smiled.

"He spends his time trollin' for blue fish," Mrs. Marx went on.

"Ah, I dare say. Do go down, Mrs. Marx, and take a walk, and see if hehas caught anything."

Lois would not go along; she told her aunt what to look for, and whichway to take, and said she would sit still with Mrs. Wishart and keepher amused.

At the very edge of the narrow valley in which the house stood, Mrs.Marx came face to face with Tom Caruthers. Tom pulled off his hat withgreat civility, and asked if he could do anything for her.

"Well, you can set me straight, I guess," said the lady. "Lois told mewhich way to go, but I don't seem to be any wiser. Where's the old deadvillage? South, she said; but in such a little place south and northseems all alike. I don' know which is south."

"You are not far out of the way," said Tom. "Let me have the pleasureof showing you. Why did you not bring Miss Lothrop out?"

"Best reason in the world; I couldn't. She would stay and see to Mrs.

Wishart."

"That's the sort of nurse I should like to have take care of me," said

Tom, "if ever I was in trouble."

"Ah, wouldn't you!" returned Mrs. Marx. "That's a kind o' nurses thatain't in the market. Look here, young man – where are we going?"

"All right," said Tom. "Just round over these rocks. The village was atthe south end of the island, as Miss Lois said. I believe she hasstudied up Appledore twice as much as any of the rest of us."

It was a fresh, sunny day in September; everything at Appledore was ina kind of glory, difficult to describe in words, and which no painterever yet put on canvas. There was wind enough to toss the waves inlively style; and when the two companions came out upon the scene ofthe one-time settlement of Appledore, all brilliance of light and airand colour seemed to be sparkling together. Under this glory lay theruins and remains of what had been once homes and dwelling-places ofmen. Grass-grown cellar excavations, moss-grown stones and bits ofwalls; little else; but a number of those lying soft and sunny in theSeptember light. Soft, and sunny, and lonely; no trace of humanhabitation any longer, where once human activity had been in full play.Silence, where the babble of voices had been; emptiness, where youngfeet and old feet had gone in and out; barrenness, where the fruits ofhuman industry had been busily gathered and dispensed. Something in thequiet, sunny scene stilled for a moment the not very sensitive spiritsof the two who had come to visit it; while the sea waves rose and brokein their old fashion, as they had done on those same rocks in old time, and would do for generation after generation yet to come. That wasalways the same. It made the contrast greater with what had passed andwas passing away.

"There was a good many of 'em." – Mrs. Marx' voice broke the pause whichhad come upon the talk.

"Quite a village," her companion assented.

"Why ain't they here now?"

"Dead and gone?" suggested Tom, half laughing.

"Of course! I mean, why ain't the village here, and the people? Thepeople are somewhere – the children and grandchildren of those thatlived here; what's become of 'em?"

"That's true," said Tom; "they are somewhere. I believe they are to befound scattered along the coast of the mainland."

"Got tired o' livin' between sea and sky with no ground to speak of.

Well, I should think they would!"

"Miss Lothrop says, on the contrary, that they never get tired of it, the people who live here; and that nothing but necessity forced theformer inhabitants to abandon Appledore."

"What sort of necessity?"

"Too exposed, in the time of the war."

"Ah! likely. Well, we'll go, Mr. Caruthers; this sort o' thing makes memelancholy, and that' against my principles to be." Yet she stoodstill, looking.

"Miss Lothrop likes this place," Tom remarked.

"Then it don't make her melancholy."

"Does anything?"

"I hope so. She's human."

"But she seems to me always to have the sweetest air of happiness abouther, that ever I saw in a human being."

"Have you got where you can see air?" inquired Mrs. Marx sharply. Tomlaughed.

"I mean, that she finds something everywhere to like and to takepleasure in. Now I confess, this bit of ground, full of graves and oldexcavations, has no particular charms for me; and my sister will notstay here a minute."

"And what does Lois find here to delight her?

"Everything!" said Tom with enthusiasm. "I was with her the first timeshe came to this corner of the island, – and it was a lesson, to see herdelight. The old cellars and the old stones, and the graves; and thenthe short green turf that grows among them, and the flowers andweeds – what I call weeds, who know no better – but Miss Lois tried tomake me see the beauty of the sumach and all the rest of it."

"And she couldn't!" said Mrs. Marx. "Well, I can't. The noise of thesea, and the sight of it, eternally breaking there upon the rocks, would drive me out of my mind, I believe, after a while." And yet Mrs.Marx sat down upon a turfy bank and looked contentedly about her.

"Mrs. Marx," said Tom suddenly, "you are a good friend of Miss Lothrop, aren't you?"

"Try to be a friend to everybody. I've counted sixty-six o' these oldcellars!"

"I believe there are more than that. I think Miss Lothrop said seventy."

"She seems to have told you a good deal."

"I was so fortunate as to be here alone with her. Miss Lothrop is oftenvery silent in company."

"So I observe," said Mrs. Marx dryly.

"I wish you'd be my friend too!" said Tom, now taking a seat by herside. "You said you are a friend of everybody."