“To you?”
“Yes, sir, and so is the island. And were these the days of marriage by barter, I’d offer you all my worldly goods for your daughter.”
“Go slow, young man. In the first place, it’s her island, not mine.”
“Hers?”
“It is. She has owned it since she was a baby.”
“Then I wish to make love to the owner.”
The old man stopped short in his tracks. He reached out and plucked a spray of cedar—flat, evergreen, like a flower so loved and pressed that it could never lose its fragrance. The spray trembled a little as he held it.
“Are you serious?”
“I was never more serious.”
There was a long silence, during which the old man gazed at the Laurentians and turned the spray of cedar in his fingers.