, don't you, tied with a bow, and all the rest hanging down?
Don't cry so, Kippy. I'm here now; brother D.'ll take care of you."

She flung her loosened arms around him and clung to him in a passion of
relief. Her sobs shook them both, and his face and neck were wet with
her tears.

As soon as they could get her sufficiently quiet, they took her into her
little bedroom.

"You let the lady get you ready," urged Mr. Opp, still holding her hand,
"and I'll take you back home, and Aunt Tish will have a nice, hot supper
all waiting for us."

But she would let nobody else touch her, and even then she broke forth
into piteous sobs and protests. Once she pushed him from her and looked
about wildly. "No, no," she cried, "I mustn't go; I am crazy!" But he
told her about the three little kittens that had been born under the
kitchen steps, and in an instant she was all a-tremble with eagerness to
go home to see them.

An hour later, Mr. Opp and his charge sat on the river-bank and waited
for the little launch that was to take them back to the Cove. A curious
crowd had gathered at a short distance, for their story had gone the
rounds.

Mr. Opp sat under the fire of curious glances, gazing straight in front
of him, and only his flushed face showed what he was suffering. Miss
Kippy, in her strange clothes and with her pale hair flying about her
shoulders, sat close by him, her hand in his.

"D.," she said once in a high, insistent voice, "when will I be grown up
enough to marry Mr. Hinton?"

Mr. Opp for a moment forgot the crowd. "Kippy," he said with all the
gentle earnestness that was in him, "you ain't never going to grow up at
all. You are just always going to be brother D.'s little girl. You see,
Mr. Hinton's too old for you, just like--" he paused, then finished it
bravely--"just like I am too old for Miss Guin-never. I wouldn't be
surprised if they got married with each other some day. You and me will
just have to take care of each other."

She looked at him with the quick suspicion of the insane, but he was
ready for her with a smile.

"Oh, D.," she cried, in a sudden rapture, "we are glad, ain't we?"

XVII

For the next four weeks there was no issue of "The Opp Eagle." When it
did make its appearance, it contained the following editorial:

Ye editor has for several weeks been the victim of the La Grip which
eventuated into a rising in our left ear. Although we are still in
severe and contin