The captain rose from his chair, crossed the sitting-room, and opened the door leading to the porch, letting in the sunshine.  Martha followed close at his heels.

“You’re runnin’ on a wrong tack, old woman, and first thing ye know ye’ll be in the breakers,” he said, with his hand on the knob.  “Ease off a little and don’t be too hard on ’em.  They’ll make harbor all right.  You’re makin’ more fuss than a hen over one chicken.  Miss Jane knows what she’s about.  She’s got a level head, and when she tells me that my Bart ain’t good enough to ship alongside the daughter of Morton Cobden, I’ll sign papers for him somewhere else, and not before.  I’ll have to get you to excuse me now; I’m busy.  Good-day,” and picking up his paper, he re-entered the house and closed the door upon her.

CHAPTER VI

A GAME OF CARDS

Should Miss Gossaway have been sitting at her. lookout some weeks after Martha’s interview with Captain Nat Holt, and should she have watched the movements of Doctor John’s gig as it rounded into the open gate of Cobden Manor, she must have decided that something out of the common was either happening or about to happen inside Yardley’s hospitable doors.  Not only was the sorrel trotting at her best, the doctor flapping the lines along her brown back, his body swaying from side to side with the motion of the light vehicle, but as he passed her house he was also consulting the contents of a small envelope which he had taken from his pocket.

“Please come early,” it read.  “I have something important to talk over with you.”

A note of this character signed with so adorable a name as “Jane Cobden” was so rare in the doctor’s experience that he had at once given up his round of morning visits and, springing into his waiting gig, had started to answer it in person.

He was alive with expectancy.  What could she want with him except to talk over some subject that they had left unfinished?  As he hurried on there came into his mind half a dozen matters, any one of which it would have been a delight to revive.  He knew from the way she worded the note that nothing had occurred since he had seen her—­within the week, in fact—­to cause her either annoyance or suffering.  No; it was only to continue one of their confidential talks, which were the joy of his life.

Jane was waiting for him in the morning-room.  Her face lighted up as he entered and took her hand, and immediately relaxed again into an expression of anxiety.

All his eagerness vanished.  He saw with a sinking of the heart, even before she had time to speak, that something outside of his own affairs, or hers, had caused her to write the note.

“I came at once,” he said, keeping her hand in his.  “You look troubled; what has happened?”

“Nothing yet,” she answered, leading him to the sofa, “It is about Lucy.  She wants to go away for the winter.”