This is a sketch—no more—of a woman who was to me, and is still, a problem for a casuist to solve. How so, you shall hear in the sequel. But, to begin, you must know her life’s story.
Mary was, when a young married woman in a Cornish fishing-village, occupying a cottage at some little distance from the harbour. She must have been a fine woman then, she is fine in her old age.
“Ah!” said she, “you have been to Maker? Did you go about in a boat there?”
“Yes.” I had boated whilst staying in the place.
“And did you see the Lady Rock?”
“Yes, it was pointed out to me.”
“And the Dead Man’s Rock?”
“I think so.”
“Well, it is all along of the Lady Rock that I was a widow.”
“How so?”