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pragmatic facts of being a third son; but she
    was also innocent, and in love. She could not believe that any man would take a wife wholly on
    account of her inheritance.
    Her parents saw that she was in love, and rejoiced for her, or they tried to, for they could not
    rejoice in her choice, and they were put to some difficulty not to let her know their misgivings.
    Their guess of the likeliest inspiration for his proposal was not clouded with love or innocence;
    and they too knew about his position as third son. But, they comforted themselves, they knew
    nothing against him, but that he was a bit over-merry in a way that they perhaps were wrong to
    dislike, for they were old and he was young; and they knew also that he was not much given to
    hard work; but this too might be on account of his youth, and his undeniable beauty, which had
    encouraged people to spoil him a little. Naught had ever been said truly against him. He was only
    twenty; perhaps he had realised it was time to settle down, and had made choice of their daughter
    by recognising her real worth, including that she might settle a husband she loved—perhaps he
    did love her, for that reason. Not for the sake of her parents’ farm. Not only for the sake of her
    parents’ farm, for they never tried to tell themselves that the farm had no place in his
    calculations. Many marriages, they said to each other, are built on less; and she loved him
    enough for both, and perhaps he would grow to love her as much, for he was—he was goodnatured enough, they thought. There was no meanness in him, just carelessness and vanity.
    But when he sat in their kitchen or sitting-room with them and their daughter, they did not like it
    that he did not seem to notice when she smiled, he did not seem to love that bright look of
    gentleness and humour and intelligence; he did not seem to see it. He petted her, as he might a
    little dog that sat adoringly at his feet, and her parents tried not to like him less for enjoying that
    their daughter adored him in such a way.
    So it was; and so it went on. The wedding date was fixed, and the relatives in the city had had the
    situation explained to them, and had promised to come to the wedding themselves, and suggested
    that perhaps the young people could visit them some day. The plans for the wedding progressed,
    and Jenny seemed no less in love, and Robert grew no less kind to her, even if it was the casual
    kindness of a boy to a little dog.
    The two farms lay on the opposite outskirts of two towns. The distance between was
    considerable, and when the young people wished to visit each other, thought had to be taken
    about time and weather, and who would do the work left undone. Both towns lay near a small
    cup of harbour, one on either side, each on a little rise of ground with the harbour at the low
    point between. It would have been much the quicker for anyone wishing to go from the one farm
    to the other to go down to the harbour and up the other side; but no one ever did go that way.
    There was still an old, broken road that led over what had once been a wide bridge for heavy
    trade and traffic between the towns at the head of the harbour, but it had lain untouched for three
    generations.
    There is rarely much contact between sea-people and land-people, but for a while there had been
    a wary association between them in the vicinity of this harbour. No one remembered how it had
    begun, but for many years there was a limited but profitable trade in certain luxury items: the
    sea-people loved fine lace, for example, perhaps in part because it perished so quickly under
    water, and bright flowers preserved in wax or glass. The land merchants preferred pearls and
    narwhal horns. Neither side was able to trust the other, however, saying that each was too
    strange, too alien, that they could not—indeed should not—be comfortable in each other’s
    company. This lack of confidence grew with time instead of easing, and no doubt trouble