Page:Rideout--Beached keels.djvu/51

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BLUE PETER
37

"'Compescitunda, scilicet omnibus,
Quicumque terrae munere vescimur
Enaviganda.'

"Enaviganda," he repeated, and was silent for a long time.

Archer was moved to question him:—

"Are n't those fellows in Black Harbor dangerous neighbors, sir?"

The scholar turned on him his long, pale face, showing eyes dull with indifference. "I hardly ever see them, even," he said.

"And your daughter?" the young man could not help persisting. But the answer missed his point surprisingly.

"Helen?—oh, you mean that it is lonely here?—Perhaps. But then, she is well and healthy, as you see. And she has lived here since a child. When my wife died, I came to this island, to retire for a time, as I thought. But when the news came that Arthur was gone, too—it was impossible to think of going back among men and cities. It is better here.—As for Helen,—why, after all, you know—

"'The summer's flower is to the summer as sweet
Though to itself it only live and die.'"