blazed, her head went up, and something ran like a
vivifying flame over her face. It was a pity Austen did not see her
then. He demanded beauty in a woman. He should have seen his young
niece angry. Then she turned and went up to her room and wrote her
mother to come. But, the letter written, she leaned upon the desk and
broke into wild and passionate crying.

CHAPTER FIVE

Alexina for several years had been made partially acquainted with her
affairs.

The evening her uncle chose to go over the whole with her, Alexina, in
the midst of it, put a hand timidly on his. "I am grateful, Uncle
Austen, you know that," she said.

The matter of the mother was fresh between them. "I have been paid, as
any one else, for my services," he answered.

She drew her hand back.

The books were a clear record of what had been done year by year.

"Cowan Steamboat Mortgage," read Alexina from a page of early
entries. "What was that?"

"A mortgage held for you on a boat built at the Cowan shipyards."

"What was the name of the boat?" Alexina's voice sounded suddenly
strained and odd.

"The 'King William,'" said Austen. "The boat never paid for itself,
and the mortgage was foreclosed and the boat sold."

The girl's eyes narrowed with curious intentness. As she listened she
pushed her hair back with the hand propping her head as if its weight
oppressed her. "And then?" she asked. "Here are more entries."

"I bought the boat in at a figure a little over the mortgage; river
affairs were down. Later, a couple of years--you'll find it there--the
boat sold for double the price."

She closed the book. "That's enough, I believe," she said, "for one
evening." But it is doubtful if he was at all aware of anything
strange in her tone.

She tripped on her skirts, so impetuous was her flight up the stairs,
and, in her room, flung herself upon the bed. Her hands even beat
fiercely as she cried, but there was no doll Sally Ann to be gathered
in for comfort now.

They had loved her, they had been good to her. Mrs. Leroy had rocked
her, the Captain had held her on his knee.

She sprang up and went to bathe her eyes. If she knew where they were,
or how to find them, she would go--

She wondered if Emily or her mother had known about this.

She went to the Carringfords' the next afternoon. She liked to go over
to the little brown house and she liked Emily's strong-featured,
outspoken mother; there was a certain homely charm even