t up like a wild
thing! Sails a boat like an old tar! Swims like a fish! Motherless--old
Billy, a poor shote, according to the gossip! The women have a sort of
pitying contempt for him; the men keep their mouths shut, but you can
fancy the training of this girl. I'm always interested in heredity and
I'd like to know the girl's mother. Something ought to account for my
pimpernel." Thornly was rising.

"I'll try to account for my flower, Mr. Devant," he said. "I dare say
some untoward wind bore it from its original environment; it may be that
the same reasons exist in the case of this flower of yours. Good night!"

"Stay to late dinner, Dick! You know you don't want to go back to a dish
of prunes and soggy cake. Better stay."

"No. Thank you, just the same. I'm going to bunk out in my shanty
to-night. I've got a chafing dish there. The prunes were undermining my
constitution. Good night!"

Devant watched him until the shrubbery hid him.

"I'll get Katharine down as soon as I can," he mused; "and for his
father's sake, as well as his own, I'll try to keep him and the
pimpernel apart until then. His engagement to Katharine is a safe
anchor."

But while Davy's Light shone friendly-wise upon Bluff Head, it also did
its duty by a lonely little mariner putting off from Davy's dock.

It had been a hard day for Janet. Susan Jane, with almost occult power,
had seemed to divine the girl's longing to get away.

"Boarder or no boarder!" the helpless woman had snarled, "I reckon
you've got somethin' human 'bout you. If you can't stop an' do fur me,
I'll call David. I've had a bad night an' I ain't goin' t' be left t'
myself. There's stirrin' doin's goin' on; but no one comes here t'
gossip."

"I'll stay," Janet had sighed, remembering David's worn, patient face
when he staggered toward the bedroom an hour before. "But I cannot
gossip, Susan Jane, I don't know how; and all the other folks are busy
cooking, feeding, washing for, and waiting on the boarders. City folks
come high, Susan Jane."

"Well, if you can't gossip, Janet, there is them as can. Thank God! when
He took the use of my legs an' arms, He strengthened my eyes an' ears. I
can see an' hear considerable, though there is them who would deny me
that comfort if they could. What ails you an' Mark Tapkins?"

"Nothing, Susan Jane."

"Yes, there be, too. He's more womble-cropped than ever. They say his Pa
is makin' a mint of money sellin' them crullers of his'n. Who