“It is too funny!” she said, as his eyes fell upon her.  “I never saw anything so funny in all my life.  A man in regimentals in this weather and upon a desert island.  You look as if you had marched faster than your army, and that you had lost it in the forest.”

Dickory smiled.  “You ought not to laugh at me,” he said, “for these clothes are really a great misfortune.  If I could change them for something cool I should be more than delighted.”

“You might take off your heavy coat,” said she; “you need not be on parade here.  And instead of that awful hat, I can make you one of long grass.  Do you see the one I have on?  Isn’t that a good hat?  I have one nearly finished which I am making for my father; you may have that.”

Dickory would most gladly have taken off his coat if, without observation, he could have transferred his sacred letter to some other part of his clothes, but he must wait for that.  He accepted instantly, however, the offer of the hat.

“You seem to know all about me,” he said; “did you hear me tell my story?”

“Every word of it,” said she, “and it is the queerest story I ever heard.  Think of a pirate carrying a man away to marry him to his daughter!”

“But why don’t you come from behind that bush and talk to me?”

“I can’t do it,” said she, “I am dressed funnier than you are.  Now I am going to make your hat.”  And in an instant she had departed.

Dickory now strolled on, and when he returned he seated himself in the shade near the house.  The letter of Captain Vince was taken from his coat-lining and secured in one of his breeches pockets; his heavy coat and waistcoat lay upon the ground beside him, with the cocked hat placed upon them.  As he leaned back against the tree and inhaled the fragrant breeze which came to him from the forest, Dickory was a more cheerful young man than he had been for many, many days.  He thought of this himself, and wondered how a man, carrying with him his sentence of lifelong misery, could lean against a tree and take pleasure in anything, be it a hospitable welcome, a sense of freedom from danger, a fragrant breeze, or the face of a pretty girl behind a bush.  But these things did please him; he could not help it.  And when presently came Mrs. Mander, bringing him a light grass hat fresh from the manufacturer’s hands, he took it and put it on with more evident pleasure than the occasion seemed to demand.

“Your daughter is truly an artist,” said Dickory.

“She does many things well,” said the mother, “because necessity compels her and all of us to learn to work in various ways.”

“Can I not thank her?” said Dickory.

“No,” the mother answered, “she is not here now.”

Dickory had begun to hate that self-evident statement.

“She’s looking out for ships; her pride is a little touched that she missed Blackbeard’s vessel yesterday.”

“Perhaps,” said Dickory, with a movement as if he would like to make a step in the direction of some tall tree upon a hill.