said dryly.

The artist woke. "You can't tell--from that." He held out his hand.

Uncle William gave it up, slowly. "I can tell more'n you'd think,
perhaps. Wimmen and the sea are alike--some ways a good deal alike. I've
lived by the sea sixty year, you know, and I've watched all kinds of
doings. But what I'm surest of is that it's deeper'n we be." He chuckled
softly. "Now, I wouldn't pertend to know all about her,"--he waved his
hand,--"but she's big and she's fresh--salt, too--and she makes your
heart big just to look at her--the way it ought to, I reckon. There's
things about her I don't know," he nodded toward the picture. "She may
not go to church and I don't doubt but what she has tantrums, but she's
better'n we be, and she--What did you say her name was?"

"Sergia Lvova."

"Sergia Lvova," repeated the old man, slowly, yet with a certain ease.
"That's a cur'us name. I've heard suthin' like it, somewhere--"

"She's Russian."

"Russian--jest so! I might'n' known it! I touched Russia once, ran up
to St. Petersburg. Now there's a country that don't hev breathin' space.
She don't hev half the sea room she'd o't to. Look at her--all hemmed
in and froze up. You hev to squeeze past all the nations of the earth to
get to her--half choked afore you fairly get there. Yes, I sailed there
once, up through Skager Rack and Cattegat along up the Baltic and the
Gulf of Finland, just edging along--" He held out his hand again for the
locket, and studied it carefully. "Russian, is she? I might 'a' known