Miss Briggs told me that in order to reach it I should take the ferry to Fairharbor, and then cross that town to the Buzzards Bay side.
“You can't miss it,” she said. “It's a big stone house, with red and white awnings. If you see anything like a jail in ruffles, that's it.”
It was evident that with the home I had rejected Miss Briggs was unimpressed; but seeing me add the post-card to my collection, she offered me another.
“This,” she explained, “is Harbor Castle from the bay. That is their yacht in the foreground.”
The post-card showed a very beautiful yacht of not less than two thousand tons. Beneath it was printed “HARBOR LIGHTS; steam yacht owned by Fletcher Farrell.” I always had dreamed of owning a steam yacht, and seeing it stated in cold type that one was owned by “Fletcher Farrell,” even though I was not that Fletcher Farrell, gave me a thrill of guilty pleasure. I gazed upon the post-card with envy.
“HARBOR LIGHTS is a strange name for a yacht,” I ventured. Miss Briggs smiled.
“Not for that yacht,” she said. “She never leaves it.”
I wished to learn more of my would-be parents, and I wished to keep on talking with the lovely Miss Briggs, so, as an excuse for both, I pretended I was interested in the Farrells because I had something I wanted to sell them.
“This Fletcher Farrell must be very rich,” I said. “I wonder,” I asked, “if I could sell him an automobile?” The moment I spoke I noticed that the manner of Miss Briggs toward Me perceptibly softened. Perhaps, from my buying offhand a fifty-dollar book she had thought me one of the rich, and had begun to suspect I was keeping her waiting on me only because I found her extremely easy to look at. Many times before, in a similar manner, other youths must have imposed upon her, and perhaps, also, in concealing my admiration, I had not entirely succeeded.
But, when she believed that, like herself, I was working for my living, she became more human.