lf.

Jane bit her lips and her face flushed scarlet. The cowardly thrust had
not wounded her own heart. It had only uncovered the love of the man
who lay enshrined in its depths. A sudden sense of the injustice done
him arose in her mind and then her own helplessness in it all.

"I would give him everything I have, if I could," she answered simply,
all her insistency gone, the tears starting to her eyes.

Lucy threw her arms about her sister and held her cheek to her own.

"Dear, I was only in fun; please forgive me. Everything is so solemn to
you. Now kiss me and tell me you love me."

That night when Captain Holt came in to play with the little "Pond
Lily," as he called Ellen, Jane told him of her conversation with Lucy,
not as a reflection on her sister, but because she thought he ought to
know how she felt toward Archie. The kiss had wiped out the tears, but
the repudiation of Archie still rankled in her breast.

The captain listened patiently to the end. Then he said with a pause
between each word:

"She's sailin' without her port and starboard lights, Miss Jane. One o'
these nights with the tide settin' she'll run up ag'in somethin' solid
in a fog, and then--God help her! If Bart had lived he might have come
home and done the decent thing, and then we could git her into port
some'er's for repairs, but that's over now. She better keep her lights
trimmed. Tell her so for me."

What this "decent thing" was he never said--perhaps he had but a vague
idea himself. Bart had injured Lucy and should have made reparation,
but in what way except by marriage--he, perhaps, never formulated in
his own mind.

Jane winced under the captain's outburst, but she held her peace. She
knew how outspoken he was and how unsparing of those who differed from
him and she laid part of his denunciation to this cause.

Some weeks after this conversation the captain started for Yardley to
see Jane on a matter of business, and incidentally to have a romp with
the Pond Lily. It was astonishing how devoted the old sea-dog was to
the child, and how she loved him in return. "My big bear," she used to
call him, tugging away at his gray whiskers. On his way he stopped at
the post-office for his mail. It was mid-winter and the roads were
partly blocked with snow, making walking difficult except for sturdy
souls like Captain Nat.

"Here, Cap'n Holt, yer jest the man I been a-waitin' for," cried Miss
Tucher, the postmistress, from behind the