The gray eyes were smiling down at her, there in the chilly spring dark, the thin mouth crooked upward in a smile. “Like I said, a lad’s lonely in a strange town at night.” Before she could answer, she heard a soft little laugh beside them. She turned about. There stood Sally Rose. Sally Rose flickered her long lashes and opened her hazel eyes very wide. “There’s no need for you to be lonely,” she trilled. “My, but you’re a handsome lad! We’ve none such handsome lads in Charlestown.” Tom Trask eyed her coldly. His mouth was still smiling, but his eyes looked sharp and unfriendly in the candlelight that shone through the dusty panes of the counting-house window behind his head. “Charlestown can’t be much of a place,” he retorted, “though I wouldn’t know, for my business never took me there, and ’tisn’t likely to. But--” He paused a moment, and his head lifted a little. “Up the Merrimack we got prettier girls than you. Maybe a score.” Sally Rose’s eyes flashed, and she tossed her curls. “I don’t care what’s up the Merrimack. I look pretty enough in Charlestown! Pretty enough to please Captain Gerald Malory of the Twenty-third!” The logger did not answer her. He turned around and walked slowly down the wharf. Kitty could hear the ring of the iron nails in the soles of his country boots as he strode away. _Chapter Two_ IN READINESS TO MARCH “Insolent plowboy!” exclaimed Sally Rose haughtily. She stood in front of the mirror wreathed with gilt cupids, her palms flat on the mahogany dressing table, and stared at her own reflection, curls loosened and falling over the shoulders of her white cambric night robe, her eyes narrowed and glinting coldly in the candlelight. Then the coldness dissolved away, and she giggled. Kitty, lying sprawled on the patchwork counterpane that covered the great four-poster bed, giggled too, uncertainly. Sally Rose had moods that changed so fast she was never able to keep up with them. So, as usual, she didn’t try, but spoke her mind in her turn. “He wasn’t a plowboy, he was a logger,” she said. “Maybe the owner of a whole forest as big as this parish. Some of them are, you know, those up-country lads. And he was too smart for you, Sally Rose. He knew you were making fun of him.” Sally Rose sat down on the counterpane and hugged her knees. She looked thoughtful. “Yes, he knew,” she said. “But when I said the same thing to Johnny Pettengall, Johnny thought I meant it. Inside, I almost laughed myself to death. I wonder why I couldn’t fool that backwoods boy, when I could fool Johnny.” “Maybe because he’s older,” suggested Kitty. “He looked older, anyway.” She got up, went to the chest, and blew the candle out. “Yes,” reflected Sally Rose, “older, but not really a man--not so much as twenty.” “Is that how old he is?” Kitty demanded. “Come on now, Sally Rose. Tell me all about him.”