t went out of Nolan's face. His lips closed
and his black eyes began to glint like moonshine on new ice.

"It bain't no more nor a step or two," he said. "If ye can't walk it
yerself, Pat,--ye an' yer wooden leg,--then I kin tote ye on me back."

"Sure ye kin go, father; an' I'll be goin' along wid the two o' ye,"
said Mary. "The poor lass bes wantin' amusement, an' it be but right for
us all to give it her. Music an' a concert she bes wantin' to keep up
her poor little heart agin the storm. Sure, an' why not? Did ye think
for her--a slip o' a grand concert-singer from up-along--to have a heart
for the wind an' snows o' Chance Along?"

Pat grumbled. The skipper looked at Mary.

"There bain't nothin' wrong wid her heart," he said.

"Sure there bain't," agreed Mary. "Her poor little heart bes jist sick
to death o' Chance Along--an' what else would ye look for? Sprees an'
company she must be havin', day after day, an' night after night, like
what she has always had. It bes our duty to amuse her, father, an' feed
her an' nurse her, till her grand folks up-along takes her away."

The skipper was not altogether satisfied with Mary's words. They did not
seem to voice his own ideas on the subject at all, though they were
evidently intended to agree with his attitude toward the singer. They
had a back-snap to them that he mistrusted.

Half an hour later all three were safe in the skipper's kitchen,
breathless and coated with snow. Flora welcomed Mary with a kiss.

"What a beauty you are," she exclaimed.

Mary's rosy cheeks deepened in color at the praise, and a shadow came
out from the depths of her gray eyes. Mother Nolan saw all this, though
she seemed to be very busy with getting poor Pat and his wooden leg into
a chair.

Well, a punch was brewed, and Pat played on his fiddle, and Flora
Lockhart sang as no one but herself ever sang before on that coast--yes,
or anywhere else in the whole island of Newfoundland. The wonder of her
singing even set young Cormick's heart to aching with nameless and
undreamed of aches. As for the skipper, he looked as if the fairies had
caught him for sure!

CHAPTER XIV

DICK LYNCH MEETS MR. DARLING

In Chance Along the wintry days and weeks crawled by, with cold and
thaw, wind, snow and fog. Flora Lockhart waited in vain for a reply to
her letter. At last her suspicions were awakened by a word from Mother
Nolan; so she wrote another letter and gave it to the old woman. The