Jimmy Hambleton did not let the shoe business entirely go to destruction, though his taste for holidays grew markedly after he brought his bride home with him to Lynn. One year, when the babies were growing up, he ordered a trim little yacht to be built and put into her berth at Charlesport. She was named the Sea Gull. Jimmy's chauffeur, called Hand, was her captain.
Sometimes, when James and Agatha were alone, in the zone of stillness that hung over the listening water, there would rise a song, clear and birdlike:
"Free of my pain, free of my burden of sorrow,
At last I shall see thee—"
and again Jimmy's heart would rise buoyant, free, happy—the heart of unquenchable youth.