“No,” answered Jane simply.

“Does he come often?” She had turned her head now and was looking from under her lids at Martha.  “Just as he used to and sit around, or has he—­” Here she lifted her eyebrows in inquiry, and a laugh bubbled out from between her lips.

“Yes, that’s just what he does do,” cried Martha in a triumphant tone; “every minute he kin git.  And he can’t come too often to suit me.  I jest love him, and I’m not the only one, neither, darlin’,” she added with a nod of her head toward Jane.

“And Barton Holt as well?” persisted Lucy.  “Why, sister, I didn’t suppose there would be a man for me to look at when I came home, and you’ve got two already!  Which one are you going to take?” Here her rosy face was drawn into solemn lines.

Jane colored.  “You’ve got to be a great tease, Lucy,” she answered as she leaned over and kissed her on the cheek.  “I’m not in the back of the doctor’s head, nor he in mine—­he’s too busy nursing the sick—­and Bart’s a boy!”

“Why, he’s twenty-five years old, isn’t he?” exclaimed Lucy in some surprise.

“Twenty-five years young, dearie—­there’s a difference, you know.  That’s why I do what I can to help him.  If he’d had the right influences in his life and could be thrown a little more with nice women it would help make him a better man.  Be very good to him, please, even if you do find him a little rough.”

They had mounted the steps of the porch and were now entering the wide colonial hall—­a bare white hall, with a staircase protected by spindling mahogany banisters and a handrail.  Jane passed into the library and seated herself at her desk.  Lucy ran on upstairs, followed by Martha to help unpack her boxes and trunks.

When they reached the room in which Martha had nursed her for so many years—­the little crib still occupied one corner—­the old woman took the wide hat from the girl’s head and looked long and searchingly into her eyes.

“Let me look at ye, my baby,” she said, as she pushed Lucy’s hair back from her forehead; “same blue eyes, darlin’, same pretty mouth I kissed so often, same little dimples ye had when ye lay in my arms, but ye’ve changed—­how I can’t tell.  Somehow, the face is different.”

Her hands now swept over the full rounded shoulders and plump arms of the beautiful girl, and over the full hips.

“The doctor’s right, child,” she said with a sigh, stepping back a pace and looking her over critically; “my baby’s gone—­you’ve filled out to be a woman.”

CHAPTER II

SPRING BLOSSOMS

For days the neighbors in and about the village of Warehold had been looking forward to Lucy’s home-coming as one of the important epochs in the history of the Manor House, quite as they would have done had Lucy been a boy and the expected function one given in honor of the youthful heir’s majority.  Most of them had known the father and mother of these girls, and all of them loved Jane, the gentle mistress of the home—­a type of woman eminently qualified to maintain its prestige.