No one called her Maria.  Her mother had named her Columbine, and Columbine she had become to all who knew her.  Her mother dying when she was only three, Columbine had been left to the sole care of her wastrel father.  And he, then a skipper of a small cargo steamer plying across the North Sea, had placed her in the charge of a spinster aunt who kept an infants’ school in a little Kentish village near the coast.  Here, up to the age of seventeen, Columbine had lived and been educated; but the old schoolmistress had worn out at last, and on her death-bed had sent for Mrs. Peck, as being the girl’s only remaining relative, her father having drifted out of her ken long since.

Mrs. Peck had nobly risen to the occasion.  She had no daughter of her own; she could do with a daughter.  But when she saw Columbine she sucked up her breath.

“My, but she’ll be a care!” was her verdict.

“She don’t know—­how lovely she is,” the dying woman had whispered.  “Don’t tell her!”

And Mrs. Peck had staunchly promised to keep the secret, so far as lay in her power.

That had happened six months before, and Columbine was out of mourning now.  She had come into the Spear Point community like a shy bird, a little slip of a thing, upright as a dart, with a fashion of holding her head that kept all familiarity at bay.  But the shyness had all gone now.  The girlish immaturity was fast vanishing in soft curves and tender lines.  And the beauty of her!—­the beauty of her was as the gold of a summer morning breaking over a pearly sea.

She was a creature of light and laughter, but there were in her odd little streaks of unconsidered impulse that testified to a passionate soul.  She would flash into a temper over a mere trifle, and then in a moment flash back into mirth and amiability.

“You can’t call her bad-tempered,” said Mrs. Peck.  “But she’s sharp—­she’s certainly sharp.”

“Ay, and she’s got a will of her own,” commented Adam.  “But she’s your charge, missus, not mine.  It’s my belief you’ll find her a bit of a handful before you’ve done.  But don’t you ask me to interfere!  It’s none o’ my job.”

“Lor’ bless you,” chuckled Mrs. Peck, “I’d as soon think of asking Rufus!”

Adam grunted at this light reference to his son.  “Rufus ain’t such a fool as he looks,” he rejoined.

“Lor’ sakes!  Whoever said he was?” protested the equable Mrs. Peck.  “I’ve a great respect for Rufus.  It wasn’t that I meant—­not by any manner o’ means.”

What she had meant did not transpire, and Adam did not pursue the subject to inquire.  He also had a respect for Rufus.

It was not long after that brief conversation that he began to notice a change in his son.  He made no overtures of friendship to the dainty witch at The Ship, but he took the trouble to make himself extremely respectable when he made his weekly appearance there.  He kept his shag of red hair severely cropped.  He attired himself in navy serge, and wore a collar.