"Will you sit down?" she asked him gravely.
The rattan chair sighed under his weight. He made another effort to talk. "I'll bet you'll be glad when summer's over."
"Why?"
"So you'll be able to go back to the mainland."
"But I never go to the mainland."
"You mean you stay out here all winter?" he asked incredulously, his mind filled with a vision of snow and frozen spray and great gray waves.
"Oh, yes. We get all our supplies on hand before winter. My aunts are very capable. They don't always wear long lace dresses. And now I help them."
"But that's impossible!" he said with sudden sympathetic anger. "You can't be shut off this way from people your own age!"
"You're the first one I ever met." She hesitated. "I never saw a boy or a man before, except in movies."
"You're joking!"