ode back up the beach.

Bart staggered back against the planking, threw out his hand to keep
from falling, and watched his father's uncertain, stumbling figure
until he was swallowed up in the gloom. The words rang in his ears like
a knell. The realization of his position and what it meant, and might
mean, rushed over him. For an instant he leaned heavily against the
planking until he had caught his breath. Then, with quivering lips and
shaking legs, he walked slowly back into the house, shutting the big
door behind him.

"Boys," he said with a forced smile, "who do you think's been outside?
My father! Somebody told him, and he's just been giving me hell for
playing cards on Sunday."

CHAPTER VII

THE EYES OF AN OLD PORTRAIT

Before another Sunday night had arrived Warehold village was alive with
two important pieces of news.

The first was the disappearance of Bart Holt.

Captain Nat, so the story ran, had caught him carousing in the House of
Refuge on Sunday night with some of his boon companions, and after a
stormy interview in which the boy pleaded for forgiveness, had driven
him out into the night. Bart had left town the next morning at daylight
and had shipped as a common sailor on board a British bark bound for
Brazil. No one had seen him go--not even his companions of the night
before.

The second announcement was more startling.

The Cobden girls were going to Paris. Lucy Cobden had developed an
extraordinary talent for music during her short stay in Trenton with
her friend Maria Collins, and Miss Jane, with her customary
unselfishness and devotion to her younger sister, had decided to go
with her. They might be gone two years or five--it depended on Lucy's
success. Martha would remain at Yardley and take care of the old home.

Bart's banishment coming first served as a target for the fire of the
gossip some days before Jane's decision had reached the ears of the
villagers.

"I always knew he would come to no good end," Miss Gossaway called out
to a passer-by from her eyrie; "and there's more like him if their
fathers would look after 'em. Guess sea's the best place for him."

Billy Tatham, the stage-driver, did not altogether agree with the
extremist.

"You hearn tell, I s'pose, of how Captain Nat handled his boy t'other
night, didn't ye?" he remarked to the passenger next to him on the
front seat. "It might be the way they did things 'board the Black Ball
Line, but 'tain't human and