Lucy threw her arms about her sister and held her cheek to her own.

“Dear, I was only in fun; please forgive me.  Everything is so solemn to you.  Now kiss me and tell me you love me.”

That night when Captain Holt came in to play with the little “Pond Lily,” as he called Ellen, Jane told him of her conversation with Lucy, not as a reflection on her sister, but because she thought he ought to know how she felt toward Archie.  The kiss had wiped out the tears, but the repudiation of Archie still rankled in her breast.

The captain listened patiently to the end.  Then he said with a pause between each word: 

“She’s sailin’ without her port and starboard lights, Miss Jane.  One o’ these nights with the tide settin’ she’ll run up ag’in somethin’ solid in a fog, and then—­God help her!  If Bart had lived he might have come home and done the decent thing, and then we could git her into port some’er’s for repairs, but that’s over now.  She better keep her lights trimmed.  Tell her so for me.”

What this “decent thing” was he never said—­ perhaps he had but a vague idea himself.  Bart had injured Lucy and should have made reparation, but in what way except by marriage—­he, perhaps, never formulated in his own mind.

Jane winced under the captain’s outburst, but she held her peace.  She knew how outspoken he was and how unsparing of those who differed from him and she laid part of his denunciation to this cause.

Some weeks after this conversation the captain started for Yardley to see Jane on a matter of business, and incidentally to have a romp with the Pond Lily.  It was astonishing how devoted the old sea-dog was to the child, and how she loved him in return.  “My big bear,” she used to call him, tugging away at his gray whiskers.  On his way he stopped at the post-office for his mail.  It was mid-winter and the roads were partly blocked with snow, making walking difficult except for sturdy souls like Captain Nat.

“Here, Cap’n Holt, yer jest the man I been a-waitin’ for,” cried Miss Tucher, the postmistress, from behind the sliding window.  “If you ain’t goin’ up to the Cobdens, ye kin, can’t ye?  Here’s a lot o’ letters jest come that I know they’re expectin’.  Miss Lucy’s” (many of the village people still called her Miss Lucy, not being able to pronounce her dead husband’s name) “come in yesterday and seems as if she couldn’t wait.  This storm made everything late and the mail got in after she left.  There ain’t nobody comin’ out to-day and here’s a pile of ’em—­ furrin’ most of ’em.  I’d take ’em myself if the snow warn’t so deep.  Don’t mind, do ye?  I’d hate to have her disapp’inted, for she’s jes’ ’s sweet as they make ’em.”

“Don’t mind it a mite, Susan Tucher,” cried the captain.  “Goin’ there, anyhow.  Got some business with Miss Jane.  Lord, what a wad o’ them!”

“That ain’t half what she gits sometimes,” replied the postmistress, “and most of ’em has seals and crests stamped on ’em.  Some o’ them furrin lords, I guess, she met over there.”