s eating her poor heart; but the skipper
gave no heed to it. On the morning of the second day of the storm, after
Mother Nolan had carried tea, bacon and toast to the singer and was
eating her own breakfast with her grandsons, the inner door opened and
Flora herself entered the kitchen. The three looked up at her in
amazement. The skipper was the first to lower his eyes.

"Good mornin' to ye," he said, and went on with his breakfast.

"Oh, I am so dull and lonely," exclaimed the girl. "This terrible storm
frightens me. Why must I stay in that dreary room all by myself?"

"Ye be welcome to the entire house, ye poor dear," said Mother Nolan.
"But has ye et yer breakfast?"

"Not yet. The storm howled so in the chimney that I was too frightened
to eat. Mayn't I bring it out here and eat it with you--and listen to
you talking?" begged Flora.

"Sure ye kin. Set right down an' I'll fetch yer tray," said Mother
Nolan.

"Aye, that ye kin--an' welcome ye be as June," said the skipper quietly.

The singer glanced at him shyly, uncertainly, with a question in her
beautiful eyes.

"You are very kind--you are all very kind," she said. "I fear that I was
very--rude to you, Mr. Nolan. I--I struck you--but you were rough. And
I--called you names--which I did not mean."

"Let it pass," said the skipper, gazing at the bacon on his plate. "I
bes rough, as ye say. It bes the way I was born an' bred. But I was
meanin' no disrespect to ye, as the holy saints be me jedges. Sure I--I
couldn't help meself!"

So it happened that Miss Flora Lockhart ate her breakfast beside the
kitchen stove with Mother Nolan, the skipper and young Cormick. The way
she ate was a wonder to watch, all so easy and quiet and polite. Mother
Nolan wagged her head over it, as much as to say that such table manners
would bring no good to such a place as Chance Along, and young Cormick
could do nothing but stare at the beautiful stranger. She talked
brightly, with the evident intention to please. It was her nature to
want to impress people favorably toward her--and after all, she owed a
great deal to these people and, for a few weeks longer at least, was
entirely in their power. She saw that the skipper was a strong man--a
man to be feared--and that her charms had ensnared his wild heart.
Therefore she must play the game artfully with him instead of continuing
the crude and honest method of slaps in the face. She believed that he
would prove harmless and docile