There had been a time in the long ago of Rockhaven's history when Jess, then a bashful young man, had loved pretty Letty Carver, now the Widow Hutton. It had started in her school days, when they romped barefoot along the sandy shore of the harbor, played about the old tide mill, whose wheels then rumbled with each ebb and flow, or gathered shells on the bits of beach between the island cliffs. When the epoch of spelling school and walk home from Thursday evening prayer meetings came, it was Letty whom Jess always singled out, and though she now wore shoes, he was not always so fortunate. But the little bond of feeling was none the less entrancing; and when later Jess sailed away to the Banks on his first fishing trip, he carried a lock of Letty's jet-black hair as a token, and her sweet face was ever present in his thoughts. When he returned, browned but successful, her welcome seemed to grow in warmth; and after two or three voyages, and he could now afford a Sunday suit when he visited her, gossip whispered they were likely to make a match. By this time he had begun to build the usual air-castles of youth, and though his took the shape of a humble dwelling, nestling amid the abutting cliffs in front of which Rockhaven stood, it was none the less a palace to him, with Letty to be its future queen.

And then the war came on and Jess, partly from patriotism, a little from love of adventure, and more to earn the liberal bounty his country offered, enlisted in the navy. Had he been a trifle less bashful and secured the promise which Letty was then willing to give, this history might never have been written; but Jess, a splendid young fellow, in spite of his surroundings, lacked assurance, and all the bond that joined them, when he sailed away, was the hope on his part of what might be if he ever came back.

He did in four years, covered with glory, but with a leg maimed by a bit of shell when under Farragut, and before Vicksburg he forgot even Letty amid the inferno of war.

In the meantime, his younger brother, Jethro, had discovered Letty, and she, practical as always, was not long in deciding that a suitor with good legs and a cottage already achieved was preferable to a hero with a lame leg and no cottage.

Jess bore his discomfiture philosophically, as was his nature, not even reproaching Letty by word or look; and though disposed to see a silver lining back of all clouds, this one he thought best to avoid, and so took himself away. He remained away, a rolling stone for fifteen years, and though he gathered some moss, it failed to efface—Letty.

And then a change came; for one day the smart new fishing schooner his brother had just built with his aid sailed away on her second voyage and never came back, and practical Letty was left a widow with one child, a modest home on Rockhaven, and naught else. As might be expected, she sent at once for Jess, and to him only imparted the facts of the situation.

Whether it was the smouldering embers of his boyhood illusion or the winsome ways of the child Mona, now four years old, that influenced him, no one ever knew, but he at once announced that he had decided to abide in Rockhaven for the future and open a store. There was one already there, but the slow growth of the village allowed a fair excuse for another, and Jess established it. Once more the gossips, who take cognizance of all matters, recalled the youthful attentions of Jess to Letty, and asserted that she would, in suitable time, discard her widow's weeds and become another Mrs. Hutton. She did put on more cheerful habiliments in due time, but remained a widow still; and though Jess was a frequent caller, usually walking to church with her and Mona on Sundays, he continued, as he had started, to live by himself over his store.

Neither were the gossips enlightened as to the financial standing of the widow, or how much had been laid away by her husband, or her means of a livelihood.

Jess knew, however, and Jess only; but he was the last person to impart such data to a curious public. What they did see was that he at once assumed a fatherly protectorship over his little niece, and she became his sole charge and care in life. Though she ate and slept at home, tripped alone to school, and to church each Sunday hand in hand with Uncle Jess, his store was her playhouse and his love her happiness until girlhood was reached. Often on summer days he left the store, utterly disregarding trade, and with her took long rambles over the island, hunting gulls' eggs and gathering shells, flowers, or berries. He built her a boat and taught her to row it in the little harbor, talked to her for hours of the great world and its people, of the planets and their motions, of right and wrong, of religion and God. He aided her in her lessons, teaching her more and faster than she learned at school; and when her fingers could reach across the strings of his old brown violin, he taught her the lore of its wondrous voice.

And so the happy years of her girlhood passed, until now, a woman grown, she had learned the lesson of loving, and had come to him with her unspoken plea for help. Never had she appealed to him in vain, and never would, so long as his keen mind was active and heart normal. For weeks he pondered over this most difficult of all problems, and then he acted.

"I've got a leetle matter to talk over with yer mother to-night, Mona," he said, "an' if ye don't mind ye might go an' make a call on one of the neighbors. It's a sorter peculiar business 'n' it's better we're 'lone till it's settled."

And it was "peculiar," and so much so that Jess talked for one hour with Mrs. Hutton in an absent-minded way, while he studied the cheerful open fire, cogitating, meanwhile, how best to utter what he had to say, while she sat sewing diligently, on the opposite side of the sitting-room table.

"Letty," he said at last, "hev ye noticed Mona hain't been overcheerful the last three months, an' seems to be sorter broodin' over suthin'?"

"I have, Jess," replied Mrs. Hutton, looking up; "and it's all due to notions that Mr. Hardy's put into her head 'bout her playin' an' praisin' her so much. I've knowed all 'long her wastin' time fiddlin' wouldn't serve no good purpose in the long run."

It wasn't an auspicious opening to the subject uppermost in the mind of Jess, but he paid no heed to it. "Letty," he continued calmly, "fiddlin' hain't nothin' to do with the state o' Mona's mind, 'n' if ye'd watched her as clus as I hev, ye'd know it. Do ye 'member when ye was a gal how Hitty Baker, ez used ter live up to the north village, got crossed in love 'n' kept broodin' on't until one day she was missin', an' 'bout a week arter they found her hangin' in the old mill? Thar's no tellin' what a gal'll do an' when she'll do it, if she gits to broodin' over sich matters."

"I hope you don't think Mona, brought up as she has been, will be such a fool as Hitty Baker was," rejoined Mrs. Hutton, sharply. "Mona's got more sense."

"'Tain't a matter o' sense," Jess retorted quickly, "it's a matter o' nater 'n' 'magination, 'n' the more o' them peculiarities a gal's got, the more onsartin she is apt to be, 'n' ez I said, Mona ain't herself these days, 'n' unless suthin's done to change the current o' her mind, fust thing you'll find, some day, she's a missin'."

"That's all your notion, Jess," answered Mrs. Hutton, now more aroused than she was willing to admit; "an' if Mona'd listen to Dave Moore, as I want her to, he'd soon cure such whims."

"Did yer mother ever make ye take catnip tea when ye was a gal, Letty," responded Jess, laconically, "an' how did ye injie the dose?" Then, not waiting for an answer, he continued, "Dave's catnip tea to Mona, 'n' I tell ye it's better ye quit dosin' her with Dave, 'n' purty soon, too. She's nobody to go to but me, an' I know how she feels, 'n' I don't think ye do."

"Have you any better medicine to advise?" came the query, as Mrs. Hutton laid aside her sewing and looked at Jess.

"I hev," replied Jess, firmly, "only it'll take both on us to give it, 'n' that's what I come here for, Letty. Ye know how I feel 'bout Mona, an' one o' these days she'll come into all I've laid by. But that's no savin' grace jist now."

"An' what'll savin' grace jist now be, I'd like to know," queried the mother. "Ain't helping me and having company when she likes, all that's needful to take up her mind? She's whimsical, an' that young feller Hardy's put notions into her head she'd be better off without."

Jess was making scant progress toward his ultimate object, and realized it—also that sentiment was a matter quite beyond Mrs. Hutton's ken. "Letty," he said at last, almost in desperation, "I've stood by ye 'n' Mona purty middlin' well fer quite a spell now, hain't I? an' ye'll 'low I kin see a hole in a grinstun if thar is one, 'n' what I've sot my mind on doin' for Mona'll be the best fer her in the long run, an' that is, we take her away from here 'n' give her a chance in the world."

Mrs. Hutton looked at him in amazement, realizing not at all what he had in mind.

"How can we do that?" she questioned.

"Thar's only one way," he answered hastily, with a now-or-never determination; "I know I'm gittin' 'long in years 'n' one o' my legs ain't workin' well, an' the only thing ye kin bank on, Letty, is my heart's in the right place 'n' my feelin's toward ye hain't changed a mite in forty year, an'—an' if ye're willin' to chance it, Letty, I'll do all I kin to make ye happy."

A woman is seldom surprised by a proposal, but Mrs. Hutton was. For fifteen years now, since she had been a widow, Jess had seemed like a good brother, which in truth he had been in all ways, and never once had she surmised he cared for a nearer kinship. Then, as she looked at him, his kindly face aglow with earnest feeling, his keen eyes beneath their shaggy eyebrows questioning her, for one instant her heart quivered. Then backward over the flight of time her memory leaped, until she saw herself a laughing, care-free girl once more, with life opening before her, and this same good friend and brother, grateful for her every word and smile of favor. Then, too, came a little nagging of conscience at the way she had ignored him on his return, a limping hero, and how he had never once reproached her for it. And following that, the heaping of coals upon her head when he, coming to her rescue in the hour of poverty and bereavement, had been the only friend she had to lean upon. All the years of his tender thought and care, all his wise counsel, all his unselfish giving, all his countless deeds of love and forethought came back now in an instant, like a mighty wave of feeling, sweeping all her pride and will before it. And as she bowed her face, covering her eyes with one hand to hide the tears she could not control, once more he spoke.

"Letty," he said, "ye needn't mind answerin' jist now. Think on't, an' to-morrow or next day tell me. Thar ain't no need o' hurry. I've waited quite a spell now, an' a day or two more won't matter."

"It's absurd," she said at last, when the tide of feeling ebbed, "and everybody will say so."

"'Tain't their funeral or weddin' either, is it?" he answered. "An' mark my words, Letty, thar's more on 'em here ez'll wish us well than ye think."

But when he came to go she said, "Why didn't you ask me forty years ago, Jess?"

"'Cause I was a durned fool 'n' dassent," he answered, "but I've outgrowed it now."