cially at low tide, and
presently they ran upon a sand-bar. Then uprose the passenger in the
stern and began to swear with an ease and facility which betokened long
practice. Dickory did not swear, but he knit his brows and berated
himself for not having taken the direction of the course into his own
hands, he who knew the river and the cove so well. The tide was rising
but Dickory was too impatient to sit still and wait until it should be
high enough to float the boat. That was his old home, that little house
at the head of the cove, and he wanted to get there, he wanted to see
it. Part of the business which brought him to Barbadoes concerned that
little house. With a sudden movement he made a dive at his shoes and
stockings and speedily had them lying at the bottom of the boat. Then he
stepped overboard and waded towards the shore. In some of the deeper
places he wetted the bottom of his breeches, but he did not mind that.
The passenger in the stern sat down, but he continued to swear.

Presently Dickory was on the dry sand, and running up to that cottage
door. A little back from the front of the house and in the shade there
was a bench, and on this bench there sat a girl, reading. She lifted her
head in surprise as Dickory approached, for his bare feet had made no
noise, then she stood up quickly, blushing.

"You!" she exclaimed.

"Yes," cried Dickory; "and you look just the same as when you first put
your head above the bushes and talked to me."

"Except that I am more suitably clothed," she said.

And she was entirely right, for her present dress was feminine, and
extremely becoming.

Dickory did not wish to say anything more on this subject, and so he
remarked: "I have just arrived at the town, and I came directly here."

Lucilla blushed again.

"This is my old home," added Dickory.

"But you knew we were here?" she asked, with a hesitating look of
inquiry.

"Oh, yes," said he, "I knew that the house had been let to your father."

Now she changed colour twice--first red, then white. "Are you," she
said, "I mean ... the other, is she--"

"I left her in Jamaica," said Dickory, "but I am going to marry her."

For a moment the rim of her hat got between the sun and her face, and
one could not decide very well whether her countenance was red or white.

"I am very glad to find you here," said Dickory, "and may I see your
father and mother?"

"Yes," said she, "but they are both in the field with my youn