nd
next day we got three pages apiece--the mean old thing! How do I look,
Martha? Is my hair all right?" Here she turned her head for the old
woman's inspection.

"Beautiful, darlin'. There won't one o' them know ye; they'll think
ye're a real livin' princess stepped out of a picture-book." Martha had
not taken her eyes from Lucy since she entered the room.

"See my little beau-catchers," she laughed, twisting her head so that
Martha could see the tiny Spanish curls she had flattened against her
temples. "They are for Bart Holt, and I'm going to cut sister out. Do
you think he'll remember me?" she prattled on, arching her neck.

"It won't make any difference if he don't," Martha retorted in a
positive tone. "But Cap'n Nat will, and so will the doctor and Uncle
Ephraim and--who's that comin' this early?" and the old nurse paused
and listened to a heavy step on the porch. "It must be the cap'n
himself; there ain't nobody but him's got a tread like that; ye'd think
he was trampin' the deck o' one of his ships."

The door of the drawing-room opened and a bluff, hearty, round-faced
man of fifty, his iron-gray hair standing straight up on his head like
a shoe-brush, dressed in a short pea-jacket surmounted by a low sailor
collar and loose necktie, stepped cheerily into the room.

"Ah, Miss Jane!" Somehow all the neighbors, even the most intimate,
remembered to prefix "Miss" when speaking to Jane. "So you've got this
fly-away back again? Where are ye? By jingo! let me look at you. Why!
why! why! Did you ever! What have you been doing to yourself, lassie,
that you should shed your shell like a bug and come out with wings like
a butterfly? Why you're the prettiest thing I've seen since I got home
from my last voyage."

He had Lucy by both bands now, and was turning her about as if she had
been one of Ann Gossaway's models.

"Have I changed, Captain Holt?"

"No--not a mite. You've got a new suit of flesh and blood on your
bones, that's all. And it's the best in the locker. Well! Well! WELL!"
He was still twisting her around. "She does ye proud, Martha," he
called to the old nurse, who was just leaving the room to take charge
of the pantry, now that the guests had begun to arrive. "And so ye're
home for good and all, lassie?"

"Yes--isn't it lovely?"

"Lovely? That's no name for it. You'll be settin' the young fellers
crazy 'bout here before they're a week older. Here come two of 'em now."

Lucy turned her head quick