cabins for me. If I'm afloat, let me be afloat; if I'm ashore, let me be
ashore."

Ashore we were by this time, the boat's keel grinding gently on the
pebbles of the beach. We landed and walked towards the cottage, there
being nothing about the place to forbid our taking this liberty. I told
Marble we would ask for a drink of milk, two cows being in sight, cropping
the rich herbage of a beautiful little pasture. This expedient at first
seemed unnecessary, no one appearing about the place to question our
motives, or to oppose our progress. When we reached the door of the
cottage, we found it open, and could look within without violating any of
the laws of civilization. There was no vestibule, or entry; but the door
communicated directly with a room of some size, and which occupied the
whole front of the building. I dare say this single room was twenty feet
square, besides being of a height a little greater than was then customary
in buildings of that class. This apartment was neatness itself. It had a
home-made, but really pretty, carpet on the floor; contained a dozen
old-fashioned, high-back chairs, in some dark wood; two or three tables,
in which one might see his face; a couple of mirrors of no great size, but
of quaint gilded ornaments; a beaufet with some real china in it; and the
other usual articles of a country residence that was somewhat above the
ordinary farm-houses of the region, and yet as much below the more modest
of the abodes of the higher class. I supposed the cottage to be the
residence of some small family that had seen more of life than was
customary with the mere husbandman, and yet not enough to raise it much
above the level of the husbandman's homely habits.

We were looking in from the porch, on this scene of rural peace and
faultless neatness, when an inner door opened in the deliberate manner
that betokens age, and the mistress of the cottage-appeared. She was a