I could
imagine the great day of certain purchases, the bewildering shops
of the next large town, the aspiring anxious woman, the clumsy sea-
tanned man in his best clothes, so eager to be pleased, but at ease
only when they were safe back in the sailboat again, going down the
bay with their precious freight, the hoarded money all spent and
nothing to think of but tiller and sail. I looked at the unworn
carpet, the glass vases on the mantelpiece with their prim
bunches of bleached swamp grass and dusty marsh rosemary, and I
could read the history of Mrs. Tilley's best room from its very
beginning.
"You see for yourself what beautiful rugs she could make; now
I'm going to show you her best tea things she thought so much of,"
said the master of the house, opening the door of a shallow
cupboard. "That's real chiny, all of it on those two shelves," he
told me proudly. "I bought it all myself, when we was first
married, in the port of Bordeaux. There never was one single piece
of it broke until-- Well, I used to say, long as she lived, there
never was a piece broke, but long at the last I noticed she'd look
kind o' distressed, an' I thought 'twas 'count o' me boastin'.
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