The incident was soon forgotten.  One young man more or less did not make much difference in Warehold.  As to Captain Nat, he was known to be a scrupulously honest, exact man who knew no law outside of his duty.  He probably did it for the boy’s good, although everybody agreed that he could have accomplished his purpose in some more merciful way.

The other sensation—­the departure of the two Cobden girls, and their possible prolonged stay abroad —­did not subside so easily.  Not only did the neighbors look upon the Manor House as the show-place of the village, but the girls themselves were greatly beloved, Jane being especially idolized from Warehold to Barnegat and the sea.  To lose Jane’s presence among them was a positive calamity entailing a sorrow that most of her neighbors could not bring themselves to face.  No one could take her place.

Pastor Dellenbaugh, when he heard the news, sank into his study chair and threw up his hands as if to ward off some blow.

“Miss Jane going abroad!” he cried; “and you say nobody knows when she will come back!  I can’t realize it!  We might as well close the school; no one else in the village can keep it together.”

The Cromartins and the others all expressed similar opinions, the younger ladies’ sorrow being aggravated when they realized that with Lucy away there would be no one to lead in their merrymakings.

Martha held her peace; she would stay at home, she told Mrs. Dellenbaugh, and wait for their return and look after the place.  Her heart was broken with the loneliness that would come, she moaned, but what was best for her bairn she was willing to bear.  It didn’t make much difference either way; she wasn’t long for this world.

The doctor’s mother heard the news with ill-concealed satisfaction.

“A most extraordinary thing has occurred here, my dear,” she said to one of her Philadelphia friends who was visiting her—­she was too politic to talk openly to the neighbors.  “You have, of course, met that Miss Cobden who lives at Yardley—­not the pretty one—­the plain one.  Well, she is the most quixotic creature in the world.  Only a few weeks ago she wanted to become a nurse in the public hospital here, and now she proposes to close her house and go abroad for nobody knows how long, simply because her younger sister wants to study music, as if a school-girl couldn’t get all the instruction of that kind here that is necessary.  Really, I never heard of such a thing.”

To Mrs. Benson, a neighbor, she said, behind her hand and in strict confidence:  “Miss Cobden is morbidly conscientious over trifles.  A fine woman, one of the very finest we have, but a little too strait-laced, and, if I must say it, somewhat commonplace, especially for a woman of her birth and education.”

To herself she said:  “Never while I live shall Jane Cobden marry my John!  She can never help any man’s career.  She has neither the worldly knowledge, nor the personal presence, nor the money.”