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Nathan Shelley, in his favourite corner behind the stove, sat lurching forward with his hands on his knees. He had laid aside his pipe out of deference to Mrs. Cameron, and it was hard for him to think without it. He wished his wife would go to work; it seemed uncanny to see her idle. She had sat idle only once that he remembered–the day they had brought Ned Shelley in, dank and dripping, after the August storm ten years before. Mrs. Shelley sat by the crooked, small-paned window and looked out down the harbour. The coat she had been patching for her husband when the Camerons came still lay in her lap, and she had folded her hands upon it. She was a big woman, slow of speech and manner, with a placid, handsome face–a face that had not visibly stirred even when she had heard the Camerons’ proposition.

They wanted Nora–these rich people who had so much in life wanted the blossom of girlhood that had never bloomed for them. John Cameron pleaded his cause well.

“We will look on her as our own,” he said at last. “We have grown to love her this summer. She is beautiful and clever–she has a right to more than Racicot can give her. You have other children–we are childless. And we do not take her from you utterly. You will see her every summer when we come to Dalveigh.”

“It won’t be the same thing quite,” said Nathan Shelley drily. “She’ll belong to your life then–not ours. And no matter how many young ones folks has, they don’t want to lose none of ’em. But I dunno as we ought to let our feelings stand in Nora’s light. She’s clever, and she’s been hankering for more’n we can ever give her. I was the same way once. Lord, how I raged at Racicot! I broke away finally–went to a city and got work. But it wasn’t no use. I’d left it too long. The sea had got into my blood. I toughed it out for two years, and then I had to come back. I didn’t want to, mark you, but I had to come. Been here ever since. But maybe ’twill be different with the girl. She’s younger than I was; if the hankering for the sea and the life of the shore hasn’t got into her too deep, maybe she’ll be able to cut loose for good. But you don’t know how the sea calls to one of its own.”

Cameron smiled. He thought that this dry old salt was a bit of a poet in his own way. Very likely Nora got her ability and originality from him. There did not seem to be a great deal in the phlegmatic, good-looking mother.

“What say, wife?” asked Shelley at last.

His wife had said in her slow way, “Leave it to Nora,” and to Nora it was left.

When she came in at last, her face stung to radiant beauty by the northwest wind, she found it hard to tell them after all. She looked at her mother appealingly.

“Is it go or stay, girl,” demanded her father brusquely.

“I think I’ll go,” said Nora slowly. Then, catching sight of her mother’s face, she ran to her and flung her arms about her. “But I’ll never forget you, Mother,” she cried. “I’ll love you always–you and Father.”

Her mother loosened the clinging arms and pushed her gently towards the Camerons.

“Go to them,” she said calmly. “You belong to them now.”

The news spread quickly over Racicot. Before night everyone on the harbour shore knew that the Camerons were going to adopt Nora Shelley and take her away with them. There was much surprise and more envy. The shore women tossed their heads.

“Reckon Nora is in great feather,” they said. “She always did think herself better than anyone else. Nate Shelley and his wife spoiled her ridiculous. Wonder what Rob Fletcher thinks of it?”