it that's coming here for her? And how did 'W. Hicks'
know she was here?" demanded Ruth.

"Maybe Captain and Mrs. Kirby told all about her when they got to
Boston. News of her, and where she was staying, got to her friends,"
said Mercy Curtis. "That's the 'why and wherefore' of it--believe
me!"

"That sounds very reasonable," admitted Aunt Kate. "The Kirbys would
only know our last name and would not know how to properly address either
Jennie or me. Come, now! get in on the rubber mats in your rooms and rub
down well. The suits will be collected and rinsed out and hung to dry
before Mammy Laura goes to bed. If any of you feel the least chill, let
me know."

But it was so warm and delightful a night that there was no danger of
colds. The girls were so excited by the telegram and had so much to say
about the mystery of Nita, the castaway, that it was midnight before any
of them were asleep.

However, they had figured out that the writer of the telegram, leaving
New York, from which it was sent at half after eight, would be able to
take a train that would bring him to Sandtown very early in the morning;
and so the excited young folks were all awake by five o'clock.

It was a hazy morning, but there was a good breeze from the land. Tom
declared he heard the train whistle for the Sandtown station, and
everybody dressed in a hurry, believing that "W. Hicks" would soon
be at the bungalow.

There were no public carriages at the station to meet that early train,
and Miss Kate had doubted about sending anybody to meet the person who
had telegraphed. In something like an hour, however, they saw a tall man,
all in black, striding along the sandy road toward the house.

As he came nearer he was seen to be a big-boned man, with broad
shoulders, long arms, and a huge reddish mustache, the ends of which
drooped almost to his collar. Such a mustache none of them had ever
seen before. His black clothes would have fitted a man who weighed a good
fifty pounds more than he did, and so the garments hung baggily upon
him. He wore a huge, black slouched hat, with immensely broad brim.

He strode immediately to the back door--that being the nearest to the
road by which he came--and the boys and girls in the breakfast room
crowded to the windows to see him. He looked neither to right nor left,
however, but walked right into the kitchen, where they at once heard a
thunderous voice demand:

"Whar's my Jane Ann? Whar's my Jane Ann, I say