Then Captain
Jim said very softly:
"Mistress Blythe, may I tell you about lost Margaret?"
"Of course," said Anne gently. She did not know who
"lost Margaret" was, but she felt that she was going
to hear the romance of Captain Jim's life.
"I've often wanted to tell you about her," Captain Jim
went on.
"Do you know why, Mistress Blythe? It's because I want
somebody to remember and think of her sometime after
I'm gone. I can't bear that her name should be
forgotten by all living souls. And now nobody
remembers lost Margaret but me."
Then Captain Jim told the story--an old, old forgotten
story, for it was over fifty years since Margaret had
fallen asleep one day in her father's dory and
drifted--or so it was supposed, for nothing was ever
certainly known as to her fate--out of the channel,
beyond the bar, to perish in the black thundersquall
which had come up so suddenly that long-ago summer
afternoon. But to Captain Jim those fifty years were
but as yesterday when it is past.
"I walked the shore for months after that," he said
sadly, "looking to find her dear, sweet little body;
but the sea never give her back to me.
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