“Oh, yes, in a minute,” replied Lucy.  “There’s plenty of time.”  With this she picked up the bunch of letters, ran her eye through the collection, and then, with the greatest deliberation, broke one seal after another, tossing the contents on the table.  Some she merely glanced at, searching for the signatures and ignoring the contents; others she read through to the end.  One was from Dresden, from a student she had known there the year before.  This was sealed with a wafer and bore the address of the cafe where he took his meals.  Another was stamped with a crest and emitted a slight perfume; a third was enlivened by a monogram in gold and began:  “Ma chere amie,” in a bold round hand.  The one under her hand she did not open, but slipped into the pocket of her dress.  The others she tore into bits and threw upon the blazing logs.

“I guess if them fellers knew how short a time it would take ye to heave their cargo overboard,” blurted out the captain, “they’d thought a spell ’fore they mailed their manifests.”

Lucy laughed good-naturedly and Jane watched the blaze roar up the wide chimney.  The captain settled back in his chair and was about to continue his “sea yarn,” as he called it, to little Ellen, when he suddenly loosened the child from his arms, and leaning forward in his seat toward where Jane sat, broke out with: 

“God bless me!  I believe I’m wool-gathering.  I clean forgot what I come for.  It is you, Miss Jane, I come to see, not this little curly head that’ll git me ashore yet with her cunnin’ ways.  They’re goin’ to build a new life-saving station down Barnegat way.  That Dutch brig that come ashore last fall in that so’easter and all them men drownded could have been saved if we’d had somethin’ to help ’em with.  We did all we could, but that house of Refuge ain’t half rigged and most o’ the time ye got to break the door open to git at what there is if ye’re in a hurry, which you allus is.  They ought to have a station with everything ’bout as it ought to be and a crew on hand all the time; then, when somethin’ comes ashore you’re right there on top of it.  That one down to Squam is just what’s wanted here.”

“Will it be near the new summer hotel?” asked Lucy carelessly, just as a matter of information, and without raising her eyes from the rings on her beautiful hands.

“’Bout half a mile from the front porch, ma’am” —­he preferred calling her so—­” from what I hear.  ’Tain’t located exactly yet, but some’er’s along there.  I was down with the Gov’ment agent yesterday.”

“Who will take charge of it, captain?” inquired Jane, reaching over her basket in search of her scissors.

“Well, that’s what I come up for.  They’re talkin’ about me,” and the captain put his hands behind Ellen’s head and cracked his big knuckles close to her ear, the child laughing with delight as she listened.

The announcement was received with some surprise.  Jane, seeing Martha’s inquiring face, as if she wanted to hear, repeated the captain’s words to her in a loud voice.  Martha laid down her knitting and looked at the captain over her spectacles.