Several days later, our party of four were peacefully rowing across the calm waters of Digby bay—that isleless harbor of purest ultramarine, where the Bay of Fundy has cloven its way through peaks still wooded to the water's edge and lifts and lowers its huge tides as far north as Annapolis, at the head of the valley of Evangeline. Chance would have it that this resort was the destination of the Marches as well as Emily and Beulah; and the acquaintance made on shipboard under such unusual circumstances was already ripening into something like friendship—perhaps more than friendship—between Tristram and Beulah Ware.
She was his opposite, his complementary color, as he said to Rosalie, and so she harmonized with him and perhaps comprehended him, as Rosalie at times did not. In only one thing did she agree with Tristram's sister. She misunderstood his irony; for her own speech was yea, yea.
"Let us cross over to the camp of the Micmacs," proposed the artist, resting on his oars.
"Are they real Indians?" asked Emily.
"Full-blooded. See their tepees." A cluster of conical tents could be seen rising from the dark foliage on the hillside. For Digby rises from the water with a slope like a toboggan slide all the way up to the white cottages on its crest.
"There is a specimen," said Tristram, as a canoe skimmed by them. "Isn't he noble? The great face, the grim mouth, the high cheek-bones, the straight hair—it is a bronze mask of Saturn. I may utilize him."
"When?"
"When I carve my life group for the Academy's grand prize."
"Have you chosen your subject?"
"Driftwood Pickers at the Sea Level."