With that he turned kindly and looked away, and Vesty bound up her hair.
Presently: "The tapestries are beautiful to-day, Note," she said.
They were sailing through the shallows near Reef Island, and they looked down through the green water. Gold, bronze and yellow, and dark velvet green, the tracings of broad sea-leaf and trailing vine on that floor.
"There isn't another house in any land tapestried like ours, Vesty. Say, wouldn't that be a charming place, after all, to rest, when——"
"You're getting aground, Note!"
"Thank you! How fortunate that you are aboard! I know how to steer a boat a little, of course, but nothing like——"
Vesty laughed, dazzled by this sarcasm. "But you didn't think of the bread or the salt or the pork for the chowder," said she triumphantly.
"Ah, I see you have them. You always think of those things. You were always my little woman, you know. You are my home."
As the boat touched the ledge she sprang out before him. By the time he had fastened his boat and clambered over the ledges with the kettle which he had brought from the crane in his shanty, Vesty had a fire of drift-wood burning.
She prepared the chowder, while he whittled out some forks of wood and gathered firm pieces of kelp for dishes.