`` Oh -- dreams , '' sighed Anne . `` I ca n't dream now , Captain Jim -- I 'm done with dreams . '' `` Oh , no , you 're not , Mistress Blythe -- oh , no , you 're not , '' said Captain Jim meditatively . `` I know how you feel jest now -- but if you keep on living you 'll get glad again , and the first thing you know you 'll be dreaming again -- thank the good Lord for it ! If it was n't for our dreams they might as well bury us . How 'd we stand living if it was n't for our dream of immortality ? And that 's a dream that 's BOUND to come true , Mistress Blythe . You 'll see your little Joyce again some day . '' `` But she wo n't be my baby , '' said Anne , with trembling lips . `` Oh , she may be , as Longfellow says , ' a fair maiden clothed with celestial grace ' -- but she 'll be a stranger to me . '' `` God will manage better 'n THAT , I believe , '' said Captain Jim . They were both silent for a little time . 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 ca n'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 XXXXX 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 .
Anne Blythe Jim Joyce Longfellow Margaret day first life maiden