chor--she did not know
that the young captain had noticed her only as "that cow" as he
swung by on his way to the road that wound up the slope of Wreckers'
Head.

Neither Eunez Pareta--nor any other girl of the port, Portygee or
Yankee--had ever made Tunis Latham's heart flutter. He was not
impervious to the blandishments of all feminine beauty. As Cap'n Ira
Ball would have said, Tunis was "a general admirer of the sect." And
as the young man passed the languishing Eunez with a cheerful nod
and smile there flashed into his memory an entirely different
picture, but one of a girl nevertheless. Somehow the memory of that
girl in Scollay Square kept coming back to his mind.

He had gone up by train for the _Seamew_ and her crew, and naturally
he had spent one night in Boston. Coming up out of the North End
after a late supper, he had stopped upon one side of the square to
watch the passing throng, some hurrying home from work, some
hurrying to theaters and other places of amusement, but all
hurrying. Nowhere did he see the slow, but carrying, stride of a man
used to open spaces. And the narrow-skirted girls could scarcely
hobble.

A narrow skirt, however, had not led Tunis Latham to give particular
note to one certain girl in the throng. She had stepped through the
door of a cheap but garish restaurant. Somebody had thrown a peeling
on the sidewalk, and she had slipped on it. Tunis had leaped and
caught her before she measured her length. She looked up into his
face with startled, violet eyes that seemed, in that one moment, to
hold in them a fascination and power that the Cape man had never
dreamed a woman's eyes could possess.

"You're all right, ma'am," he said, confused, setting her firmly on
her feet.

"My skirt!" She almost whispered it. There seemed to be not a
shyness, but a terrified timidity in her voice and manner. Tunis saw
that the shabby skirt was torn widely at the hem.

"Let's go somewhere and get that fixed," he suggested awkwardly.

"Thank you, sir. I will go back into the restaurant. I work there. I
can get a pin or two."

He had to let her go, of course. Nor could he follow her. He lacked
the boldness that might have led another man to enter the restaurant
and order something to eat for the sake of seeing what became of the
girl with the violet eyes and colorless velvet cheeks. There had
been an appeal in her countenance that called Tunis more and more as
he dreamed about her.

And standing