In an August six children and a grown-up were sitting around the pulpit stone. The grown-up was Miss Reade, who had been up to give the girls their music lesson and had consented to stay to tea, much to the of the said girls, who continued to worship her with unabated and romantic ardour. To us, over the golden grasses, came the Story Girl, carrying in her hand a single large poppy, like a blood-red filled with the wine of August wizardry. She it to Miss Reade and, as the latter took it into her singularly slender, beautiful hand, I saw a ring on her third finger. I noticed it, because I had heard the girls say that Miss Reade never wore rings, not them. It was not a new ring; it was handsome, but of an old-fashioned design and setting, with a glint of diamonds about a central . Later on, when Miss Reade had gone, I asked the Story Girl if she had noticed the ring. She nodded, but seemed disinclined to say more about it.  
“Look here, Sara,” I said, “there’s something about that ring—something you know.”
 
“I told you once there was a story growing but you would have to wait until it was grown,” she answered.
 
“Is Miss Reade going to marry anybody—anybody we know?” I persisted.
 
“Curiosity killed a cat,” observed the Story Girl coolly. “Miss Reade hasn’t told me that she was going to marry anybody. You will find out all that is good for you to know in due time.”
 
When the Story Girl put on grown-up airs I did not like her so well, and I dropped the subject with a dignity that seemed to amuse her .
 
She had been away for a week, visiting cousins in Markdale, and she had come home with a new treasure-trove of stories, most of which she had heard from the old sailors of Markdale Harbour. She had promised that morning to tell us of “the most event that had ever been known on the north shore,” and we now reminded her of her promise.
 
“Some call it the ‘Yankee Storm,’ and others the ‘American Gale,’” she began, sitting down by Miss Reade and beaming, because the latter put her arm around her waist. “It happened nearly forty years ago, in October of 1851. Old Mr. Coles at the Harbour told me all about it. He was a young man then and he says he can never forget that dreadful time. You know in those days hundreds of American fishing used to come down to the every summer to fish mackerel. On one beautiful Saturday night in this October of 1851, more than one hundred of these could be counted from Markdale . By Monday night more than seventy of them had been destroyed. Those which had escaped were mostly those which went into harbour Saturday night, to keep Sunday. Mr. Coles says the rest stayed outside and fished all day Sunday, same as through the week, and HE says the storm was a on them for doing it. But he admits that even some of them got into harbour later on and escaped, so it’s hard to know what to think. But it is certain that on Sunday night there came up a sudden and terrible storm—the worst, Mr. Coles says, that has ever been known on the north shore. It lasted for two days and scores of vessels were driven and completely . The crews of most of the vessels that went ashore on the sand beaches were saved, but those that struck on the rocks went to pieces and all hands were lost. For weeks after the storm the north shore was strewn with the bodies of drowned men. Think of it! Many of them were unknown and unrecognizable, and they were buried in Markdale . Mr. Coles says the schoolmaster who was in Markdale then wrote a poem on the storm and Mr. Coles recited the first two verses to me.
 
    “‘Here are the fishers’ hillside graves,
      The church beside, the woods around,
      Below, the hollow moaning waves
      Where the poor fishermen were drowned.
 
    “‘A sudden tempest the blue welkin tore,
      The tossed and torn apart
      Rolled with the seaweed to the shore
      While landsmen gazed with aching heart.’ 
“Mr. Coles couldn’t remember any more of it. But the saddest of all the stories of the Yankee Storm was the one about the Franklin Dexter. The Franklin Dexter went ashore on the Markdale Capes and all on board perished, the Captain and three of his bro............