It was the lightkeeper’s interference that saved further and more bitter words between the two stranded voyagers. Tobias got another look at the taller figure’s face, and in spite of the pulled-down peak of his cap and the goggles he wore, recognized it. "If ’tain’t Ralph Endicott!" exclaimed the lightkeeper. "And who is that with you? _Not_ Miss Lorna?" "Oh, Mr. Bassett!" cried the young woman, stumbling toward him. "Take me to the light. I shall be _so_ glad of its shelter. Is Miss Hephzibah at home?" "She was when I left," said Tobias. "An’ I cal’late she won’t go gaddin’ endurin’ this gale. It don’t show right good sense for anybody to be out such a night." "That’s what I tell him," the girl cried. "Anybody with sense——" "You wanted to come over here and see what shape the house was in, Lorna Nicholet!" stormed Ralph Endicott. "I was only doing you a favor." "Do you call this a favor?" demanded the girl. "Anybody would think I brought this storm on purposely." "You certainly tried to get through a road that you should have known would be drifted when it _did_ begin to snow. Bah! Give me your arm, Mr. Bassett. He’s the most useless——" "Ain’t no good _you_ staying out here, Ralphie," advised the old lightkeeper. "Nobody will run off with that little buzz-cart of yourn. Heppy’s got fish balls for supper—a whole raft of ’em." The young man followed through the snow, grumbling. The prospect of a good meal, as Tobias later acknowledged, did not seem to influence a college man as it once might the long-legged harum-scarum boy who had raced these beaches for so many summers. Endicott and Lorna Nicholet were of the sandpiper class. So Tobias usually referred to the summer visitors who fluttered about the sands for several months of each year. These young folks had been coming to Clay Head each season since they were in rompers. Lorna’s aunt, Miss Ida Nicholet of Harbor Bar, and head of the family, owned the rambling old house overlooking the mouth of the bay. The Endicotts—"the Endicotts of Amperly," to distinguish them from numerous other groups of the same name whose habitat dot the sea-coast of Massachusetts—usually occupied one of the bungalows on Clay Head during the summer. "See what the gale blowed in, Heppy," was the lightkeeper’s announcement as he banged open the outer door.