Captain James reined in the horse before taking the Foster Hill, and compassion showed in his kindly eyes as he turned and watched the grey face of his passenger.
"Eliza Brewster used to be a pretty girl," was his pitiful thought.
She kept silence, her pale eyes resting on the dark waters of the cove, austerely quiet in the windless twilight.
"Feels like snow," said Captain James. "S'pose you could snowball now, Eliza? I know when we were youngsters you could hold yer own with any boy on the island."
"That's my one talent, James," responded Eliza drily. "I can hold my own yet."
The captain smiled with relief at this sign that some of the old spirit lingered behind that haggard face.
"By cracky," he said, "I'll bring up a bob-sled after the first snow, and we'll toboggan downhill again, Eliza. Never say die. Git ap, Tom."
The carriage started up toward a long low white house on the summit of the ridge. Four bare Balm of Gilead trees stood sentinel before it in a waste of withered grass. Beyond rose the gnarled boughs of a struggling apple orchard, beside which a tiny house with blank uncurtained windows stood beneath the forlorn guard of two more gaunt bare trees standing ready for the conflict with winter winds, and bearing the scars of many a battle past. Back of the little building was a shallow field inclining downward to the open ocean which held the island now in its black, mighty embrace, creeping with a subdued roar upon the cold rocky sands.
"Say, Eliza," said Captain James, as the tiny deserted cottage came into view, "was we afraid o' Granny Foster, was we? Say!"
The speaker turned and interrogated his passenger with a twinkle.