"
It was not extraordinary that the joy of human intercourse, after such
estrangement, became a rapture to so loving a nature as Celia
Laighton's; nor that, very early, before the period of fully ripened
womanhood, she should have been borne away from her island by a
husband, a man of birth and education, who went to preach to the wild
fisher folk on the adjacent island called Star.
The exuberant joy of her unformed maidenhood, with its power of self-
direction, attracted the reserved, intellectual nature of Mr. Thaxter.
He could not dream that this careless, happy creature possessed the
strength and sweep of wing which belonged to her own sea-gull. In good
hope of teaching and developing her, of adding much in which she was
uninstructed to the wisdom which the influences of nature and the
natural affections had bred in her, he carried his wife to a quiet
inland home, where three children were very soon born to them. Under
the circumstances, it was not extraordinary that his ideas of
education were not altogether successfully applied; she required more
strength than she could summon, more adaptability than many a grown
woman could have found, to face the situation, and life became
difficult and full of problems to them both. Their natures were
strongly contrasted, but perhaps not too strongly to complement each
other, if he had fallen in love with her as a woman, and not as a
child. His retiring, scholarly nature and habits drew him away from
the world; her overflowing, sun-loving being, like a solar system in
itself, reached out on every side, rejoicing in all created things.
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