Warehold by way of the road, when, calling the dog
to her side, she stopped to feast her eyes on the
picture unrolled at her feet.

To the left of where she stood curved the coast,
glistening like a scimitar, and the strip of yellow
beach which divided the narrow bay from the open
sea; to the right, thrust out into the sheen of silver,
lay the spit of sand narrowing the inlet, its edges
scalloped with lace foam, its extreme point dominated
by the grim tower of Barnegat Light; aloft,
high into the blue, soared the gulls, flashing like
jewels as they lifted their breasts to the sun, while
away and beyond the sails of the fishing-boats, gray
or silver in their shifting tacks, crawled over the
wrinkled sea.

The glory of the landscape fixed in her mind,
Martha gathered her shawl about her shoulders,
tightened the strings of her white cap, smoothed out
her apron, and with the remark to Meg that he'd
"never see nothin' so beautiful nor so restful,"
resumed her walk.

They were inseparable, these two, and had been
ever since the day she had picked him up outside
the tavern, half starved and with a sore patch on his
back where some kitchen-maid had scalded him.
Somehow the poor outcast brought home to her a sad
page in her own history, when she herself was homeless