clothes noticeable for a love of brightness rather than care in the
spending of a small sum.

Gerrit Ammidon had the strangest tastes!

He was standing immobile, looking across the Cove as if he were on a
quarter-deck searching for a hidden land. His legs were slightly spread,
firmly planted in a manner to defeat any sudden lurching. She grew a
little impatient at him staring like a block at nothing at all; she felt
older than he, superior in the knowledge of life; he seemed hardly more
than an absurd boy. Sidsall had a desire to shake him. He was so--so
impracticable. "Don't you think we'd better be going?" she asked finally.
Gerrit Ammidon turned and followed her obediently.

There were lights in the rope walk on Briggs Street; through a window she
could see a man pacing down the long narrow interior laying a strand of
hemp from the burden on his shoulders. It made her shudder to think of
the monotonous passage forward and back, an eternity of slow-twisting
rope. Yet life was something like that--she took the happenings of each
day and wove them into a strand dark and bright: a strand, she realized,
that grew stronger as it lengthened.... That would be true of
everyone--of her companion and grandfather and Hodie.

They reached the house as the family were gathering in the dining room,
when Sidsall found Roger Brevard unexpectedly staying for supper. She met
his direct greeting and smile with a warm stir of pleasure and sat in a
happy silence listening to the voices about the table. Her uncle had
brought his wife down and the candles glittering among the lusters on the
walls spread their light over the Manchu's strange vivid figure.
Everything about life was so confusing, Sidsall thought. The night flowed