“Yes, I am here. My home is here at The Harbor, and you can see the house through this window; that white house beyond the fishflakes in the field. There are some apple–trees back of it, which you can see.”
“I didn’t know you were here,” said Walter again, looking off from the house, and rapidly taking the picture of the young teacher. She was hardly of medium height, and was simply clad, in a black alpaca dress, wearing at her throat a crimson ribbon pinned with a small cross of gold. Her brown hair was very soft and fine, and of a luxuriant growth. Her features were a little irregular, but her complexion was fair, and then a certain brightness and directness of look gave her blue eyes a magnetic power.
“Yes,” she laughingly said, “I suppose you would call me the village ‘schoolmarm,’ at least, this fall. When I was a little girl, I remember—sitting on one of those benches in front,—I had an ambition to be some day the teacher of the school. But, Plympton, I have been wanting to see you, and thank you for your kindness to my brother, Woodbury. He has—has—a weakness, as you know; and what you did that afternoon, checked him when he was sorely tempted.”
“I am very glad if I did any good. And—and—I have thought I would like to thank you, sometime.”
“For what?”
“Do you remember your composition?”
“Oh, I believe I wrote a number of them. Which one was it?”
“That one called, ‘What are we living for?’ That influenced me a good deal,” said Walter, rising as if to go.
“Did it? I never knew that it helped anybody, except, perhaps, it set me to thinking more fully afterwards on the subject. Are you going?”
“I think I must. But I want to thank you for what you said; and if I can help Woodbury, I will.”