a kind of fetichism, and believe so heartily in supernatural causes. I
suppose nothing could shake Mrs. Patton's faith in warnings. There is no
end of absurdity in it, and yet there is one side of such lives for
which one cannot help having reverence; they live so much nearer to
nature than people who are in cities, and there is a soberness about
country people oftentimes that one cannot help noticing. I wonder if
they are unconsciously awed by the strength and purpose in the world
about them, and the mysterious creative power which is at work with them
on their familiar farms. In their simple life they take their instincts
for truths, and perhaps they are not always so far wrong as we imagine.
Because they are so instinctive and unreasoning they may have a more
complete sympathy with Nature, and may hear her voices when wiser ears
are deaf. They have much in common, after all, with the plants which
grow up out of the ground and the wild creatures which depend upon
their instincts wholly."

"I think," said Kate, "that the more one lives out of doors the more
personality there seems to be in what we call inanimate things. The
strength of the hills and the voice of the waves are no longer only
grand poetical sentences, but an expression of something real, and more
and more one finds God himself in the world, and believes that we may
read the thoughts that He writes for us in the book of Nature." And
after this we were silent for a while, and in the mean time it grew very
late, and we watched the fire until there were only a few sparks left in
the ashes. The stars faded away and the moon came up out of the sea, and
we barred the great hall door and went up stairs to bed. The lighthouse
lamp burned steadily, and it was the only light that had not been blown
out in all Deephaven.