Captain Melville and Reuben were friends before bed-time. Reuben's gentle
simplicity and unworldliness, and patient demeanor, roused in the rough
sailor a sympathy like that he had always felt for women. And to Reuben
the hearty good cheer, and brisk, bluff sailor ways were infinitely
winning and stimulating.

The next day Mrs. Melville came home. In a short time the little household
had adjusted itself, and settled down into its routine of living. When, in
a few days, the great car-load of the Millers' furniture arrived, Capt.
Melville insisted upon its all going to the auction-rooms excepting the
kitchen furniture, and a few things for which Jane had especial
attachment. It brought two hundred dollars, which, in addition to the
price of the farm, and the store and its stock, gave Reuben just nineteen
hundred dollars to put in the Savings Bank.

"And I am to be counted at least two thousand more, father dear, so you
are not such a very poor man after all," said Draxy, laughing and dancing
around him.

Now Draxy Miller's real life began. In after years she used to say, "I
was born first in my native town; second, in the Atlantic Ocean!" The
effect of the strong sea air upon her was something indescribable; joy
seemed to radiate from her whole being. She smiled whenever she saw the
sea. She walked on the beach; she sat on the rocks; she learned to swim in
one lesson, and swam so far out that her uncle dared not follow, and
called to her in imploring terror to return. Her beauty grew more and more
radiant every day. This the sea gave to her body. But there was a far
subtler new life than the physical, a far finer new birth than the birth
of beauty,--which came to Draxy here. This, books gave to her soul. Only a