“Just in time, Mary Jane! I am glad you are through with your work! I have come to take you home to supper as soon as this shower blows over. John told me to tell you he would bring you home this evening. He has something pretty for you. I do not know what it is, but he made it and he feels sure that you will like it. You are too good, Mary Jane! I told John that you were kinder than I, but perhaps you would not like his homemade gift. I am very sure that I should not prefer it unless it were finer than you could buy in the shops.” So talking on, Jenny pushed Mary Jane through the stairway door. The storm drove her father out of the flax patch, and in a few minutes, he hastened into the warmth of the kitchen. His wife called from the inner room and told him that Jenny Lewis had come for Mary Jane and she hoped he would allow the girl to go down to Cap’n Lewis’s for the evening. There could be no harm, the mother said, in Mary Jane having well-to-do friends. John Lewis was a sober, industrious youth, even though his sister Jenny was rather flighty. She would like to have Mary Jane go more often to visit in Jenny’s home. As the mother made her ambitious little plans, the girls came into the kitchen. Mary Jane glanced shyly at her father. She was wearing her best summer dress. “Jenny has asked me down to her house for supper, Father. The storm has passed around, and the sun is coming out. I should like to go. Everything is ready to put on the table for your supper, and Abigail can attend to the children. Jenny says she and John will walk a piece with me when I come home.” “Why, Mary Jane Andrews, I never said anything of the sort!” Jenny exclaimed, “John sent word he wanted to bring you home.” Mary Jane’s father looked at her searchingly and gravely. Mary Jane had not meant to tell a fib but she was always bashful when she spoke of John Lewis. Could there be a smile in her father’s eye? She thought not. She dropped her own eyes and waited. In a minute her father spoke: “Better not go out to-night, Daughter. Your mother will be up in a day or two, and then there will be more freedom for you. Responsibility will not hurt any lass and a small disappointment is better than a pleasure taken at the wrong time.” “Tell John,” her father added as he turned to Jenny, “that we shall be glad to see him when he calls up here. I hear that your father has made another successful trip. It is a hard and dangerous life he lives on the sea. May the Lord prosper him.” Then Mary Jane’s father went out. Jenny flung herself into the rocker and spoke angrily to Mary Jane.