`` Well , at last everything was ready -- even to the logs in the big fireplace ready for lighting . 'T was n't exactly THIS fireplace , though 't was in the same place . Miss Elizabeth had this put in when she made the house over fifteen years ago . 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 . Here youths and maidens had dreamed . For Captain Jim the little house was tenanted with shapes entreating remembrance . `` It was the first of July when the house was finished . The schoolmaster began to count the days then . We used to see him walking along the shore , and we 'd say to each other , ` She 'll soon be with him now . ' `` She was expected the middle of July , but she did n't come then . Nobody felt anxious . Vessels were often delayed for days and mebbe weeks . The Royal William was a week overdue -- and then two -- and then three . And at last we began to be frightened , and it got worse and worse . Fin ` lly I could n't bear to look into John Selwyn 's eyes .
D'ye know , Mistress Blythe '' -- Captain XXXXX lowered his voice -- `` I used to think that they looked just like what his old great-great-grandmother 's must have been when they were burning her to death .
't Anne Elizabeth Gilbert Jim Selwyn William days evenings week