and
hobbled off.

"He'd have kept you there all day," whispered Captain Walter. "He
always loved to talk, and now he has nothing else to do; but we are
all friendly to Goodsoe. Some of us pay a little every year toward his
support, but he has always made himself very useful about the wharves
until this last year or two; he thought everything of your
grandfather, and I knew it would please him to speak to you. It seems
unfortunate that you should have grown up anywhere else than here; but
I hope you'll stay now?"

"It is not very likely," said Nan coldly. She wished that the captain
would go on with his stories of the former grandeur of Dunport, rather
than show any desire to talk about personal matters. She had been
little troubled at first by her aunt's evident disapproval the evening
before of her plans for the future, for she was so intent upon
carrying them out and certain that no one had any right to interfere.
Still it would have been better to have been violently opposed than to
have been treated like a child whose foolish whim would soon be
forgotten when anything better offered itself. Nan felt much older
than most girls of her years, and as if her decisions were quite as
much to be respected as her aunt's. She had dealt already with graver
questions than most persons, and her responsibilities had by no means
been light ones. She felt sometimes as if she were separated by half a
lifetime from the narrow limits of school life. Yet there was an
uncommon childlikeness about her which not only misled these new
friends, but many others who had known her longer. And when these
listened to accounts of her devotion to her present studies and her
marked proficiency, they shook their wise heads smilingly, as if they
knew that the girl was innocent of certain proper and insurmountable
obstacles farther on.

The air was fresh, and it was so pleasant on the wharf that the
captain paced to and fro several times, while he pointed out different
objects of interest along the harbor-side, and tapped the rusty anchor
and the hawsers with his walking-stick as he went by. He had made some
very pointed statements to the keeper's wife about the propriety of
opening the hatches on such a morning as that, which she had received
without comment, and wished her guests good-day with provoking
equanimity. The captain did not like to have his authority ignored,
but mentioned placidly that he supposed every idler along shore had
been