These letters the captain held in his hand when he pushed open the door of the sitting-room and stood before the inmates in his rough pea-jacket, his ruddy face crimson with the cold, his half-moon whiskers all the whiter by contrast.

“Good-mornin’ to the hull o’ ye!” he shouted.  “Cold as blue blazes outside, I tell ye, but ye look snug enough in here.  Hello, little Pond Lily! why ain’t you out on your sled?  Put two more roses in your cheeks if there was room for ’em.  There, ma’am,” and he nodded to Lucy and handed her the letters, “that’s ’bout all the mail that come this mornin’.  There warn’t nothin’ else much in the bag.  Susan Tucher asked me to bring ’em up to you count of the weather and ‘count o’ your being in such an all-fired hurry to read ’em.”

Little Ellen was in his arms before this speech was finished and everybody else on their feet shaking hands with the old salt, except poor, deaf old Martha, who called out, “Good-mornin’, Captain Holt,” in a strong, clear voice, and in rather a positive way, but who kept her seat by the fire and continued her knitting; and complacent Mrs. Dellenbaugh, the pastor’s wife, who, by reason of her position, never got up for anybody.

The captain advanced to the fire, Ellen still in his arms, shook hands with Mrs. Dellenbaugh and extended three fingers, rough as lobster’s claws and as red, to the old nurse.  Of late years he never met Martha without feeling that he owed her an apology for the way he had treated her the day she begged him to send Bart away.  So he always tried to make it up to her, although he had never told her why.

“Hope you’re better, Martha?  Heard ye was under the weather; was that so?  Ye look spry ’nough now,” he shouted in his best quarter-deck voice.

“Yes, but it warn’t much.  Doctor John fixed me up,” Martha replied coldly.  She had no positive animosity toward the captain—­not since he had shown some interest in Archie—­but she could never make a friend of him.

During this greeting Lucy, who had regained her chair, sat with the letters unopened in her lap.  None of the eagerness Miss Tucher had indicated was apparent.  She seemed more intent on arranging the folds of her morning-gown accentuating the graceful outlines of her well-rounded figure.  She had glanced through the package hastily, and had found the one she wanted and knew that it was there warm under her touch—­the others did not interest her.

“What a big mail, dear,” remarked Jane, drawing up a chair.  “Aren’t you going to open it?” The captain had found a seat by the window and the child was telling him everything she had done since she last saw him.