“We come purty nigh leavin’ everybody on the Ledge las’ night, Betty, an’ the sloop too,” said Captain Joe, “cutting” his eye at the skipper as he spoke. Then in a more serious tone, “I lef’ Caleb a-purpose, child. We got some stavin’ big derricks to set, an’ Mr. Sanford wants ’em up week arter next, an’ there ain’t nobody kin fix the anchor sockets but me an’ Caleb. He’s at work on ’em now, an’ I had to come back to git th’ bands on ’em. He’ll be home for Sunday, little gal.” “Well, you jes’ better, or I’ll lock up my place an’ come right down here to Aunty Bell. Caleb wasn’t home but two nights last week, and it’s only the beginnin’ of summer. I ain’t like Aunty Bell,—she can’t get lonely. Don’t make no difference whether you’re home or not, this place is so chuck-full of folks you can’t turn round in it; but ’way up where I live, you don’t see a soul sometimes all day but a peddler. Oh, I jes’ can’t stand it, an’ I won’t. Land sakes, Aunty Bell, what a lot of folks you’ve had for breakfast!” [Illustration: “Swung back the gate with the gesture of a rollicking boy”] With another laugh she turned to the table, picked up a pile of plates, and carried them into the pantry to Miss Peebles, who was there helping in the wash-up. Lacey, who had stopped to look after his drying coat when the men went out, watched her slender, graceful figure, and bright, cheery, joyous face, full of dimples and color and sparkle, the hair in short curls all over her head, the throat plump and white, the little ears nestling and half hidden. She had been brought up in the next village, two miles away, and had come over every morning, when she was a girl, to Miss Peebles’s school. Almost everybody knew her and loved her; Captain Joe as much as if she had been his own child. She filled a place in his heart of which he seldom spoke,—never to Aunty Bell,—a place empty until Betty came, and always aching since he and his wife had laid away, on the hill back of the village church, the only child that had ever come to them. When Caleb gave up the lightship Captain Joe had established him with Betty’s mother as boarder, and that was how the marriage came about. When Betty returned to the room again, her arms loaded with plates, Carleton and Lacey were standing. “Take this seat; you must be tired walking down so far,” said Carleton, with a manner never seen in him except when some pretty woman was about. “No, I’m not a bit tired, but I’ll set down till I get these boots off. Aunty Bell, can you lend me a pair of slippers? One of these plaguy boots leaks.” “I’ll take ’em off,” offered Carleton, with a gesture of gallantry.