Mrs. Maynard explained. "It's just bronchial. The air will do me more
good than anything. I'm keeping out in it all I can."

After they were gone, a queer, gaunt man came and glanced from the
doorway at her. He had one eye in unnatural fixity, and the other set at
that abnormal slant which is said to qualify the owner for looking round
a corner before he gets to it. A droll twist of his mouth seemed partly
physical, but: there is no doubt that he had often a humorous intention.
It was Barlow, the man-of-all-work, who killed and plucked the poultry,
peeled the potatoes and picked the peas, pulled the sweet-corn and the
tomatoes, kindled the kitchen fire, harnessed the old splayfooted mare,
--safe for ladies and children, and intolerable for all others, which
formed the entire stud of the Jocelyn House stables,--dug the clams,
rowed and sailed the boat, looked after the bath-houses, and came in
contact with the guests at so many points that he was on easy terms with
them all. This ease tended to an intimacy which he was himself powerless
to repress, and which, from time to time, required their intervention. He
now wore a simple costume of shirt and trousers, the latter terminated by
a pair of broken shoes, and sustained by what he called a single gallows;
his broad-brimmed straw hat scooped down upon his shoulders behind, and
in front added to his congenital difficulty of getting people in focus.
"How do you do, this morning, Mrs. Maynard?" he said.

"Oh, I'm first-rate, Mr. Barlow. What sort of day do you think it's going
to be for a sail?"

Barlow came out to the edge of the piazza, and looked at the sea and sky.
"First-rate. Fog's most burnt away now. You don't often see a fog at
Jocelyn's after ten o'clock in the mornin'."