Harper’s Magazine/A Girl of the Gray Sea

A Girl of the Gray Sea
BY JENNETTE LEE

THE dining-room of the "Island House" was full of soft light. It filtered through the drawn shades, and lay along the tables, with their
coarse cloths and stiff, pointed napkins, with a kind of radiance, as if it fell through stained glass upon some primitive altar made ready for use. Four young girls moved in the subdued light, putting the last touches to the room, and chatting lightly or singing little snatches of song as they worked. Each girl wore a wild rose in her hair, and in the centre of the long tables stood stiff, awkward bunches of wild flowers, each bunch thrust firmly under its tumbler—hardhack, daisies, St.-John's-wort, bartsia, and heal-all. One glass held a handful of trailing yew that sprawled a little on the cloth. The girl who was arranging the table bent over and drew it in place with careful fingers. She had a pale, clear face, with eyes the color of the sea; they clouded a little as she looked up from the handful of yew…. It was later than she had thought—the others were all ready.
They stood grouped at the other end of the room, moving a little to a kind of dance tune that one of them hummed softly, striking her tr

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