"What do I s'pose? Well, then, I s'pose he's stayin' away lest them rich
folks what runs the 'Harbor' comes again an' catches him unbeknownst.
Don't you go fret, honey. Had your supper?"

"No, Jane, an' it's such a splendid one. That lovely grocer man----"

"Ugh!" interrupted the woman, with a derisive shrug of her shoulders.
"You're the beatin'est child for seein' handsomeness where 'tain't."

"Oh, I 'member you don't like him much, 'cause onct he give short
measure o' flour, or somethin', but he is good an' I didn't mean purty,
an' just listen!"

Jane did listen intently to the story of the grocer's unusual
generosity, and she hearkened, also, for the sound of a familiar,
hesitating footstep and the thump of a heavy cane, such as would reveal
the captain's approach long before he might be seen, but the Lane was
very silent. It was later than Glory suspected and almost all the
toilers were in their beds. It was late, even for the flower-seller, who
had been up-town to visit an ailing friend and had tarried there for
supper.

Jane had always felt it dangerous for a blind man, like the old seaman,
to go about the city, attended only by a dog, but she knew, too, that
necessity has no choice. The Becks must live and only by their united
industry had they been able to keep even their tiny roof over their
heads thus far. If harm had come to him--what would become of Glory?
Well, time enough to think of that when the harm had really happened.
The present fact was that the little girl was famishing with hunger yet
had a fine supper awaiting her. She must be made to eat it without
further delay.

"Come, deary, we'll step along an' you eat your own chop, savin' hisn
till he sees fit to come get it. A man 'at has sailed the ocean
hitherty-yender, like Cap'n Simon Beck has, ain't likely to get lost in
the town where he was born an' raised. Reckon some them other old crony
cap'ns o' hisn has met an' invited him to eat along o' them. That Cap'n
Gray, maybe, or somebody. First you know, we'll hear him stumpin' down
the Lane, singin' 'A life on the ocean wa-a-ave,' fit to rouse the
entire neighborhood. You eat your supper an' go to bed, where children
ought to be long 'fore this time."

Posy Jane's tone was so confident and cheerful that Glory forgot her
anxiety and remembered only that chop which was awaiting her. The pair
hurried back to the littlest house which the flower-seller seemed
entirely to fill with her big person,