places. The ladies of Nantucket have never been provincial in their
fashions. Our ancestors shopped in the marts of the world. When our
captains sailed the seas they brought home to their womenfolk the
treasures of loom and needle from Barcelona and Bordeaux, from Bombay
and Calcutta, London and Paris and Tokio.

And perhaps because of my content in my new hat, perhaps because of the
pleasant young pair of lovers which I had left behind me in the old
house, perhaps because of the shade and sunshine, and the gardens,
perhaps because of the bells, the world seemed more than ever good to me
as I went on my way.

My pew in the church is well toward the middle. My ancestors were
modest, or perhaps they assumed that virtue. They would have neither the
highest nor the lowest seat in the synagogue.

It happens, therefore, that strangers who come usually sit in front of
me. I have a lively curiosity, and I like to look at them. In the winter
there are no strangers, and my mind is, I fancy, at such times, more
receptive to the sermon.

I was early and sat almost alone in the great golden room whose
restraint in decoration suggests the primitive bareness of early days.
Gradually people began to come in, and my attention was caught by the
somewhat unusual appearance of a man who walked up the aisle preceded by
the usher.

He was rather stocky as to build, but with good, square military
shoulders and small hips. He wore a blue reefer, white trousers, and
carried a yachtsman's cap. His profile as he passed into his pew showed