“M. Isaacs” was over the door; Mr. Isaacs was within. Without, three golden balls were hanging, like apples of the Hesperides; within was an array of goods which the three balls had brought in.

Mr. Isaacs was walking to and fro behind the counter, and briskly rubbing his hands.

“My good wife Sarah,” he said, with a strong Semitic accent, “those sudden, raw east winds! I am so frozen as if I was enjoying myself upon the skating-rink,—and here it is the summer. Where is that long spring overcoat that German man hypotecated with us last evening? Between the saddle and the gold-lace uniform, you say?”

And taking it down, by means of a long, hooked pole, he put it on. It covered his ears and swept the ground: “It make me look like Aaron in those pictures,” he said.

It would have been a grasping disposition that could not be suited with something from out Mr. Isaacs's stock. It would have been hard to name a faculty of the human soul or a member of the human body to which it could not lend aid and comfort. One musically inclined could draw the wailing bow or sway the accordion; pucker at the pensive flute, or beat the martial, soul-arousing drum. One stripped, as it were, on his way to Jericho, could slink in here and select for himself a fig-leaf from a whole Eden of cut-away coats and wide-checkered trousers, all fitting “to surprise yourself,” and could be quite sure of finding a pair of boots, of whatever size was needed, of the very finest custom hand work,—a misfit, made for a gentleman in New York. A devout man, according to his leanings, could pray from the prayer-book of an impoverished Episcopalian, or sing from the hymn-book of an insolvent Baptist.

“So help me gracious!” Mr. Isaacs used to say, raising his shoulders and opening wide his palms; “when you find a man so ungrateful that he cannot be fitted out with somethings from my stock, I really suppose you could not fit that man out in Paradise.”

Mr. Isaacs was looking nervous. But it was not by the images which his ordinary stock in trade would naturally cause to arise that he was disturbed,—images though they were of folly, improvidence, and distress. There was indeed hardly an article in the shop, except the new plated jewelry in the window, that was not suggestive of misery or of sin. But in Mr. Isaacs's well-poised mind no morbid fancies arose. “Those hard winters makes me cheerful,” he was wont to say in the fall; “they makes the business lifely.”

Still, Mr. Isaacs was a little troubled this afternoon, and, singularly enough, about a most happy purchase that he had just made, at ninety per cent below value. There the articles lay upon the counter,—a silk hat, a long surtout, a gold-headed cane and a pair of large rubbers; a young man's Derby hat and overcoat and rattan cane, and a pair of arctics; a lady's bonnet and dolman and arctics; a young girl's hat with a soft bird's-breast, and her seal-skin sack and arctics; besides four small boys' hats and coats and arctics. It seemed as if some modern Elijah, a family man, expectant of translation, had made with thrifty forethought an “arrangement” that Mr. Isaacs's shop should be the point of departure, and flying off in joyous haste, with wife and children, had left the general raiment on the counter. You would naturally have looked for a sky-lit hole in the ceiling.

“So help me gracious!” said Mr. Isaacs, turning the articles over; “I suppose there 's some policemen just so wicked and soospicious to say I must know those garments are stolen—scooped off some hat-tree, the last winter, at one grab.”

“Why do you enter dose on de book to-gedder?” said Mrs. Isaacs. “If you put dose separate on de book, how de policeman know dey came in togedder?”

“That is a great danger, Sarah. That's just the way they fix our good friend Greenbaum. When they caught the thief, and he tell them where he sell some things, and Greenbaum had put down those earrings and those bracelets and that Balmoral skirt for three different times, they say he must know those things was stolen,—if not, why did he put those things down different from each other?

“But so help me gracious!” he added, presently, “I have not the least soospicions, like the babes unborn, those goods are stolen. The man that brought them in was very frank, and very much of a gentleman; and he lay his hand upon his bosom-pin, and swear he sell those things because he has no more use for them,—his family all sick of tyvoid fever, and cannot live the week out. But I suppose there's some policemen just so soospicious to say I must know those things are stolen.”

“And so cruel soospicions,” said Mrs. Isaacs,—“and your heart so pure and white like your shirt-bosom.” She meant his ideal shirt-bosom.

“Just like those evil-minded policemen,” he said. “You remember how they lock up our old friend Abrahamson? So help me gracious! sent that good old man to prison, just because he buy two gold watches and two pairs of gold spectacles and an ivory-handled knife and two empty pocket-books and two silk umbrellas and a seal ring and two bunches of keys and two black wigs from a red-headed laboring man; they say he must know that two old gentlemen were robbed of that personal property.”

But here his attention was diverted by the sight of two men, seamen to appearance, who were looking into the show-window.

“I like so much,” he said, “to see the public enjoying themselves in my window; it give them so happy pleasure to see those lovely things; and often they comes in and buy somethings. This young man,” he added, after a pause, “seem to admire those broad neck-wear; he look at both those two,—the Four-in-hand and the Frolic.”

“I think he look most at de Frolic,” said Mrs. Isaacs; “I think he would come in if you go outside and take him by de arm like a true frient, and bring him in. My broder Moses walk outside de whole day long, and take each man when he go by and talk to him like his own broder, wid tears in his eyes, and make dem come in and buy somedings.”

But Mr. Isaacs only wrapped the long coat more closely about his linen garments, and watched the younger man as he turned his eyes away from the Four-in-hand and the Frolic and bent them on the trays in which were glittering tiers of rings and pins, and rows of watches labelled “Warranted genuine, $14;” “Dirt-cheap, $8.75;” “Doct's Watch, Puls-counting, $19.50.”

“He look like he had some money,” said Mrs. Isaacs. “Perhaps he would come in and buy a watch if you go out and pull him in. How can he buy someding through de glass? My broder Moses say, 'So many folks is bashful.'”

But at last the men, after talking awhile, apparently of the goods in the window, came in.

“What's the price of some of those ear-rings in the window?” said the younger. “Let's see what you've got for a couple of dollars or so.”

“So help me gracious!” said Mr. Isaacs, as he took from the show-window three or four cards of plated ear-rings. “I knew you would come in to buy somethings. When I saw you look in—the very first moment—I say to my wife, 'There is a good young man that will give a present to some lovely young lady.' Yes, sir, the very words I said to Sarah.”

“What's the price of this pair? I haven't got any girl to treat, but I 've just got paid off for a whaling voyage, and my lay figured up a twenty-dollar bill above what I expected, and I don't care if I do lay out a couple of dollars on my wife besides what I 've brought home for her.”

“Well, sir,” said Mr. Isaacs, “the good wife is the very best jewelry. Those are two dollars. But only study this pair. Hold those up to the light and take a bird's-eye view through those lovely stones, so round and large like green peas. Now look. So! Now let your friend look!”

“I 'm no judge,” said the other man, “I know what pleases me—that's all. But them would make a great display, David, wouldn't they?”

“You 're right, sir,” said Mr. Isaacs. “'Display' is the very word. My wife wear just the twins of this pair to the congregation, every week.”

Mrs. Isaacs raised her eyebrows: she wore nothing but diamonds.

“What's the price of these green ones?” asked David.

Mr. Isaacs shrugged his shoulders.

“I suppose those are the finest articles of the kind in the whole creation,” he said. “We can let you have those to-day,” and he lowered his voice to a whisper, and put his hand up beside his mouth, “to close out stock—for six dollars. They cost us only last week eight-fifty, but we are obliged to reduce stock prior to removal. The building is to be taken down.”

“I would like those tip-top; but I don't know—it's a good deal of money for gewgaws; my wife would take me to do for it; I guess I must keep to the two-dollar ones. I come pretty hard by my dollars, and a dollar means a good deal to me just now.”

“But just once look again,” said Mr. Isaacs, and he stepped briskly behind his wife and held up an ear-ring to each of her ears. “See them on a chaste and lovely form. With these your wife will be still more lovely. All those other men will say, 'Where did that graceful lady find so rich ear-rings?' You will see they are a great success: her most bosom friends will hate her; they will turn so green like the grass on the ground with envy. It is a great pleasure when my wife wears those kind: her very sisters cannot speak for anger, and her own mother looks so rigid like the Cardiff Giant.”

“Well, I guess I shall have to take them,” said David, “and you 'll have to wrap them right up: we have n't got more than about time to get the train, have we, Calvin?”

“So help me gracious!” said Mr. Isaacs, “is there no time to sell our friend Calvin a pair? He will repent not to secure those other pair, until his dying day; so sorry like he lose his ship some day upon those rocks. I suppose there is no others like those in the whole creation.”

But he wrapped the purchase up in a bit of white paper and gave David Prince four trade dollars in change for a ten-dollar bill, and the two men went out, leaving Mr. Isaacs free to attend to a timid woman in black who had just come in to raise fifty cents upon a ring, while Mrs. Isaacs looked after a carpenter who proposed to pawn his edge-tools for rent-money.

Mr. Isaacs waved his hand and smiled as the men went out of the door. “You will find they are a success, to surprise yourself,” he called out: “her most bosom friends will writhe and scream with envy.”

---

The winding line of the long New England coast faces the sea, in its sweeping curves, in every direction. From the Callender place, the ocean lay to the south. Though elsewhere east winds might be blowing harsh upon the coast, here, almost every day, and all day long, in summer, the southwest wind came pouring in from the expanse of waters, fresh and cool, boisterous often, but never chill; and even winds from the east lost edge in crossing miles of pitch-pine woods, of planted fields, of sandy ponds, of pastures, and came in softened down and friendly.

A gentle breeze was drifting in from sea. All day long it had been blowing, salt and strong and riotous, tossing the pine-tops, bending the corn, swaying the trees in the orchards, but now it was preparing to die away, as was its wont, at sundown, to give to the woods, the cornfields and the orchards a little space of rest and peace before it should rise again in the early evening to toss them all night long. The blue of the sky was blue in the water. Every object stood out sharp and clear. Down the low, curving shore-line, curls of smoke rose from distant roofs, and on the headland, up the coast, the fairy forest in the air was outlined with precision. Distant ships were moving, like still pictures, on the horizon, as if that spell were laid on them which hushed the enchanted palace. There was just sea enough to roll the bell-buoy gently, and now and then was rung an idle note of warning. Three fishing-boats lay anchored off the Spindle, rising and falling, and every now and then a sea broke on the rock. On the white sand beach, waves were rolling in, dying softly away along the shore, or heavily breaking, with a long, flying line of foam.

The sun was fast descending. Delia Prince went out to the corner of the house and shaded her eyes to look at the sunset. The white clouds turned to a flaming red, and the reflection dyed to crimson the surface of the creeks; the sun descended toward the wooded bluff that flanked the bay, sent a thousand shattered, dazzling rays through the trees, and disappeared.

The red of the clouds and the red of the water gave place to gray. The wind died down. The silence was intense,—all the more marked because of the few sharp sounds that broke it now and then. Across the bay, near shore, a man was raking oysters; he stood in the stern of his skiff, and the bow was up in the air. Near by a girl was driving sluggish cows along the beach, and her shrill cries came over the water; by a cottage on the bank a boy was chopping brush upon a block, and Delia watched the silent blows, and heard the sound come after. He smiled as she looked; for every night she saw the boy's mother stand at the door to call him, and saw him come reluctant to his task.

There was a sense of friendly companionship in all these homely sights and sounds. It was different from the old house, shut in close by a second growth of birch and oak.

The table was standing ready for a late supper. The children had gone for berries to the Island, and they would soon come home, and David was due, too, with his money.

She smiled as he appeared. The ascent to the brow of the hill was so sharp that first you saw a hat in movement, then a head, then shoulders, body, legs, and feet. She ran quickly down the road to meet him, and took his arm.

“You couldn't catch the noon train?” she said. “Captain Wells stopped at the door a little while ago to see what time we should be down to get the deed, and luckily I told him that we might not be down until into the evening. He said he 'd stay at home and wait till we came.”

“Delia,” said David, when he had seated himself in the house, “I 've got bad news to tell you, and I may as well out with it first as last.”

“You have n't shipped for another whaling voyage?”

“No; that would be nothing,” he said.

Delia stood and looked at him.

“Well,” she said, “didn't you get as much as you counted on?”

“Yes,—twenty more.”

“It isn't anything about the children? I expect them home every minute.”

“No.”

“Delia,” he said, “you was a great fool ever to have me. You ought to have taken advice.”

“What is the matter?” she said. “Why don't you tell me?”

“I 've lost the money,” he said. “The Captain warned me how apt a seafaring man is to lose money; but I did n't take any heed, and I went off with Calvin Green—”

“With Calvin Green! What did I tell you!” she said.

“Wait a minute—and I stopped into a jewelry store and bought you a pair of ear-rings, and I came off and left my wallet on the counter, the way that fool Joe Bassett did, to Gloucester. When I went back, the rascal claimed he never saw me before—said he didn't know me from the Prophet Samuel, as if I was born that minute. And now they'll all say—and it's true—that I'm a chip of the old block, and that I 'm bound to come out at the little end. There!” he said, as he opened a little parcel and took out the earrings. “There 's what 's left of five hundred and twenty dollars, and you must make the most of 'em. Hold 'em up to the light and see how handsome they are. I don't know, after all, but they are worth while for a man to pitch overboard off Cape Horn and harpoon whales two years for. All is, just tell folks they cost five hundred dollars, and they 'll be just as good as hen's-egg diamonds.

“In fact, I don't know but I sort o' like the situation,” he went on, in a moment. “It seems sort of natural and home-like. I should have felt homesick if I 'd really succeeded in getting this place paid for. 'T would have seemed like getting proud, and going back on my own relations. And then it 'll please everybody to say, 'I told you so.' There 'll be high sport round town, when it gets out, and we back water down to the old place.

“Come, say something, Delia!” he said, in a moment. “Why don't you say something about it? Don't you care that the money's lost, that you stand there and don't say a word, and look at nothing?”

“I don't want to say anything now,” she said, “I want to think.”

---

“Well!” said Captain Bennett, the next day, to his wife, “Delia 's got more spunk! I should have felt like laying right down in the shafts, in her place; but instead of that, to actually go and talk them into letting her keep the Cal-lender place and pay for it so much a month! And David's signed a paper to do it.”

“I guess if the truth was known,” said Mrs. Bennett, knitting on, “that, come to think it over, she was more scared of David's settling back than she was for losing the money.”

“She 's got a pull on him now,” said the Captain, “anyway, for if he once agrees to a thing he always does it.”