"See my little beau-catchers," she laughed, twisting
her head so that Martha could see the tiny
Spanish curls she had flattened against her temples.
"They are for Bart Holt, and I'm going to cut sister
out. Do you think he'll remember me?" she
prattled on, arching her neck.

"It won't make any difference if he don't,"
Martha retorted in a positive tone. "But Cap'n
Nat will, and so will the doctor and Uncle Ephraim
and--who's that comin' this early?" and the old
nurse paused and listened to a heavy step on the
porch. "It must be the cap'n himself; there ain't
nobody but him's got a tread like that; ye'd think
he was trampin' the deck o' one of his ships."

The door of the drawing-room opened and a bluff,
hearty, round-faced man of fifty, his iron-gray hair
standing straight up on his head like a shoe-brush,
dressed in a short pea-jacket surmounted by a low
sailor collar and loose necktie, stepped cheerily into
the room.

"Ah, Miss Jane!" Somehow all the neighbors,
even the most intimate, remembered to prefix
"Miss" when speaking to Jane. "So you've got
this fly-away back again? Where are ye? By jingo!
let me look at you. Why! why! why! Did you
ever! What have you been doing to yourself, lassie,
that you should shed your shell like a bug and come