dma
Elsie was at their door, asking if they were well. She stayed for a
little chat with them, and Lulu asked what her punishment was to be.

"Simply a prohibition of lonely rambles," Elsie answered, with a grave
but kindly look; "and I trust it will prove all-sufficient; you are to
keep near the rest of us for your own safety."

CHAPTER IX.

"He that spareth his rod hateth his son: but he that loveth him
chasteneth him betimes."--_Prov_. 13: 24.

When the morning boat touched at Nantucket pier there were among the
throng which poured ashore two fine-looking gentlemen--one in the prime
of life, the other growing a little elderly--who sought out at once a
conveyance to 'Sconset.

The hackman had driven them before, and recognized them with evident
pleasure mingled with surprise.

"Glad to see you back again, capt'n," he remarked, addressing the
younger of his two passengers; "but it's kind of unexpected, isn't it? I
understood you'd gone to join your ship, expecting to sail directly for
foreign parts."

"Yes, that was all correct," returned Captain Raymond, gayly, for he it
was, in company with Mr. Dinsmore; "but orders are sometimes
countermanded, as they were in this instance, to my no small content."

"They'll be dreadful glad to see you at 'Sconset," was the next remark;
"surprised, too. By the way, sir, your folks had a fright last evening."

"A fright?" inquired both gentlemen in a breath, and exchanging a look
of concern.

"Yes, sirs; about one of your little girls, capt'n--the oldest one, I
understood it was. Seems she'd wandered off alone to Tom Never's Head,
or somewhere in that neighborhood, and was caught by the darkness and
storm, and didn't find her way home till the older folks had begun to
think she'd been swept away by the tide, which was coming in, to be
sure; but they thought it might have been the backward flow of a big
wave that had rushed up a little too quick for her, taking her off her
feet and hurrying her into the surf before she could struggle up again."

All the captain's gayety was gone, and his face wore a pained, troubled
look.

"But she did reach home in safety at last?" he said, inquiringly.

"Oh, yes; all right except for a wetting, which probably did her no
harm. But now maybe I'm telling tales out of school," he added, with a
laugh. "I shouldn't like to get the little girl into trouble, so I hope
you'll not be too hard on her, capt'n. I dare say the fright has