It was a big, old-fashioned fireplace where you could have roasted an ox.

Many's the time I've sat here and spun yarns, same's I'm doing tonight." Again there was a silence, while Captain Jim kept a passing tryst with visitants Anne and Gilbert could not see--the folks who had sat with him around that fireplace in the vanished years, with mirth and bridal joy shining in eyes long since closed forever under churchyard sod or heaving leagues of sea.

Here on olden nights children had tossed laughter lightly to and fro.

Here on winter evenings friends had gathered.

Dance and music and jest had been here.