he handed her the
lamp. "I believe I am going to have a delightful time here."

"Of course you be! Of course!" he exclaimed. "An' if I ain't here,
Cap'n Am'zon will show you a better time than I could. Good-night.
Sleep well, Louise."

He kissed her on the forehead. But she, impulsively, pressed her fresh
lips to the storekeeper's weather-beaten cheek. Before she closed the
door of the bedroom she heard him clumping downstairs in his heavy
boots.

After that he must have removed his footgear for, although she heard
doors open and close, she could not distinguish his steps.

"I'm glad I came!" she told herself with enthusiasm as she prepared to
retire. "What a delightful old place it is! And Uncle Abram--why,
he's a _dear_! Daddy-prof was not half enthusiastic enough about the
Cape Cod folk. It has been a distinct loss to me that I was never here
before."

She laid out her toilet requisites upon the painted pine bureau and
hung her negligee over the back of a chair. As she retied the ribbon
in one of the sleeves of her nightgown she thought:

"And that Tapp boy came back a second time! Some fisherman's son, I
suppose. But exceedingly nice looking!"

A little later the feather bed had taken her into its arms and she
almost instantly fell asleep. Occasionally through the night she was
roused by unfamiliar sounds. There was a fog coming in from the sea
and the siren at the lighthouse on the Neck began to bellow like a
bereft cow.

There were movements downstairs. Once she heard a wagon stop, and
voices. Then the bumping of heavy boxes on the side porch. Her
trunks. Voices below in the living-room--gruff, yet subdued. Creaking
footsteps on the stair; then Louise realized that they were carrying
something heavy down and out to the waiting wagon. She was just
dropping to sleep when the wagon was driven away.

There came a heavy summons on her door while it was still dark. But a
glance at her watch assured Lou Grayling that it was the fog that made
the light so dim.

"Yes, Cap'n Abe?" she called cheerfully, for even early rising could
not quench her good spirits.

"'Tain't time to get up yet, Niece Louise," he told her behind the thin
panel of the door. "Don't disturb yourself. Cap'n Amazon's come an'
I'm off."

"You're what?" gasped the girl sitting up in her nest of feathers.

"I'm a-goin' to Boston. Jest got time to ketch the clam-train at the
depot. Don't you bother; Cap'n Am'zo