I
believe young girls are not supposed to use strong language. I feel as
you do about church and the outdoors. I find it irksome to be cooped up
anywhere. But come in, and I will have Wing Fan give you some pigeon
pot-pie. We had a famous one for dinner and you surely must be hungry.
Afterwards, I'll show you through The Prairie Maid as I sometimes call
this craft."

Chicken Little began to feel at home. "And to think Ernest said he
didn't like women and girls! Pooh, I knew he was just fooling."

Wing Fan found other things beside the pot-pie, and Chicken Little was
soon feasting luxuriously with the Chinaman waiting on her most
deferentially. Her host watched her with a keener interest, had she but
known it, than he had shown in any human being for many months.

He was a man of fifty odd. Naturally reticent, his long voyages in
command of merchant vessels had fostered an aloofness and love of
solitude, which had later been intensified by a great grief. His stern
bearing had repelled his country neighbors in the year he had lived on
Big John. He was satisfied that it should be so, yet he was intensely
lonely.

But Chicken Little knew nothing of all this. The thick sprinkling of
white in his black hair and the deep lines in his face, made her
entirely comfortable--they were just like Father's. She was too curious
to verify Ernest's tales of the queer house, to give much attention to
her host at first. She stared around her with wide eyes. Yes, there were
the funny little built-in cupboards and window seats, and the plate
racks, and the shelves that let down with gilt chains. Every single
thing was painted white. "My, how lovely and clean it all looked!" And
the blue Chinese panels; she had never seen anything like them. And
there were five pictures of ships.

Even the dishes were a marvel to her. Jane had seen plenty of fine china
but never any so curious as this old Blue Canton with its landscapes and
quaint figures. The Captain was pleased with her ingenuous admiration.

When she had finished her dinner, he took her across the gallery to his
library, a room seldom shown to the residents of the creek. Even Ernest
and Frank hadn't seen it, Jane learned later. This apartment was quite
as marvellous as the dining-room. A long, low room it was, with many
lacquered and carved cabinets and tables. The wall space above these was
pictureless, but two great ivory tusks were crossed over a doorway.
Above the fireplace rows