of
positive character and generally had his own way in everything. It was
therefore with some astonishment that he heard Martha say when she had
mounted the porch steps and pushed open the front door, her breath
almost gone in her hurried walk, "Come inside."

Captain Holt threw down his paper and rising hurriedly from his chair,
followed her into the sitting-room. The manner of the nurse surprised
him. He had known her for years, ever since his old friend, Lucy's
father, had died, and the tones of her voice, so different from her
usual deferential air, filled him with apprehension.

"Ain't nobody sick, is there, Martha?"

"No, but there will be. Are ye alone?"

"Yes."

"Then shut that door behind ye and sit down. I've got something to say."

The grizzled, weather-beaten man who had made twenty voyages around
Cape Horn, and who was known as a man of few words, and those always of
command, closed the door upon them, drew down the shade on the sunny
side of the room and faced her. He saw now that something of more than
usual importance absorbed her.

"Now, what is it?" he asked. His manner had by this time regained
something of the dictatorial tone he always showed those beneath him in
authority.

"It's about Bart. You've got to send him away." She had not moved from
her position in the middle of the room.

The captain changed color and his voice lost its sharpness.

"Bart! What's he done now?"

"He sneaks off with our Lucy every chance he gets. They were on the
beach yesterday hidin' behind the House o' Refuge with their heads
together. She had on Miss Jane's red cloak, and Ann Gossaway thought it
was Miss Jane, and I let it go at that."

The captain looked at Martha incredulously for a moment, and then broke
into a loud laugh as the absurdity of the whole thing burst upon him.
Then dropping back a step, he stood leaning against the old-fashioned
sideboard, his elbows behind him, his large frame thrust toward her.

"Well, what if they were--ain't she pretty enough?" he burst out. "I
told her she'd have 'em all crazy, and I hear Bart ain't done nothin'
but follow in her wake since he seen her launched."

Martha stepped closer to the captain and held her fist in his face.

"He's got to stop it. Do ye hear me?" she shouted. "If he don't
there'll be trouble, for you and him and everybody. It's me that's
crazy, not him."

"Stop it!" roared the captain, straightening up, the glasses on the
sideboard ringin