“Beautiful, darlin’.  There won’t one o’ them know ye; they’ll think ye’re a real livin’ princess stepped out of a picture-book.”  Martha had not taken her eyes from Lucy since she entered the room.

“See my little beau-catchers,” she laughed, twisting her head so that Martha could see the tiny Spanish curls she had flattened against her temples.  “They are for Bart Holt, and I’m going to cut sister out.  Do you think he’ll remember me?” she prattled on, arching her neck.

“It won’t make any difference if he don’t,” Martha retorted in a positive tone.  “But Cap’n Nat will, and so will the doctor and Uncle Ephraim and—­who’s that comin’ this early?” and the old nurse paused and listened to a heavy step on the porch.  “It must be the cap’n himself; there ain’t nobody but him’s got a tread like that; ye’d think he was trampin’ the deck o’ one of his ships.”

The door of the drawing-room opened and a bluff, hearty, round-faced man of fifty, his iron-gray hair standing straight up on his head like a shoe-brush, dressed in a short pea-jacket surmounted by a low sailor collar and loose necktie, stepped cheerily into the room.

“Ah, Miss Jane!” Somehow all the neighbors, even the most intimate, remembered to prefix “Miss” when speaking to Jane.  “So you’ve got this fly-away back again?  Where are ye?  By jingo! let me look at you.  Why! why! why!  Did you ever!  What have you been doing to yourself, lassie, that you should shed your shell like a bug and come out with wings like a butterfly?  Why you’re the prettiest thing I’ve seen since I got home from my last voyage.”

He had Lucy by both bands now, and was turning her about as if she had been one of Ann Gossaway’s models.

“Have I changed, Captain Holt?”

“No—­not a mite.  You’ve got a new suit of flesh and blood on your bones, that’s all.  And it’s the best in the locker.  Well!  Well!  Well!” He was still twisting her around.  “She does ye proud, Martha,” he called to the old nurse, who was just leaving the room to take charge of the pantry, now that the guests had begun to arrive.  “And so ye’re home for good and all, lassie?”

“Yes—­isn’t it lovely?”

“Lovely?  That’s no name for it.  You’ll be settin’ the young fellers crazy ’bout here before they’re a week older.  Here come two of ’em now.”

Lucy turned her head quickly, just as the doctor and Barton Holt reached the door of the drawing-room.  The elder of the two, Doctor John, greeted Jane as if she had been a duchess, bowing low as he approached her, his eyes drinking in her every movement; then, after a few words, remembering the occasion as being one in honor of Lucy, he walked slowly toward the young girl.

“Why, Lucy, it’s so delightful to get you back!” he cried, shaking her hand warmly.  “And you are looking so well.  Poor Martha has been on pins and needles waiting for you.  I told her just how it would be—­that she’d lose her little girl—­and she has,” and he glanced at her admiringly.  “What did she say when she saw you?”