“No, thank you; I don’t want to look at his poor back, nor his poor tail, nor anything else poor about him.  And you will send him away, won’t you, like a dear good old Martha?” she added, patting Martha’s shoulder in a coaxing way.  Then encircling Jane’s waist with her arm, the two sisters sauntered slowly back to the house.

Martha followed behind with Meg.

Somehow, and for the first time where Lucy was concerned, she felt a tightening of her heart-strings, all the more painful because it had followed so closely upon the joy of their meeting.  What had come over her bairn, she said to herself with a sigh, that she should talk so to Meg—­to anything that her old nurse loved, for that matter?  Jane interrupted her reveries.

“Did you give Meg a bath, Martha?” she asked over her shoulder.  She had seen the look of disappointment in the old nurse’s face and, knowing the cause, tried to lighten the effect.

“Yes—­half water and half sand.  Doctor John came along with Rex shinin’ like a new muff, and I was ashamed to let him see Meg.  He’s comin’ up to see you to-night, Lucy, darlin’,” and she bent forward and tapped the girl’s shoulder to accentuate the importance of the information.

Lucy cut her eye in a roguish way and twisted her pretty head around until she could look into Jane’s eyes.

“Who do you think he’s coming to see, sister?”

“Why, you, you little goose.  They’re all coming —­Uncle Ephraim has sent over every day to find out when you would be home, and Bart Holt was here early this morning, and will be back to-night.”

“What does Bart Holt look like?”—­she had stopped in her walk to pluck a spray of lilac blossoms.  “I haven’t seen him for years; I hear he’s another one of your beaux,” she added, tucking the flowers into Jane’s belt.  “There, sister, that’s just your color; that’s what that gray dress needs.  Tell me, what’s Bart like?”

“A little like Captain Nat, his father,” answered Jane, ignoring Lucy’s last inference, “not so stout and—­”

“What’s he doing?”

“Nothin’, darlin’, that’s any good,” broke in Martha from behind the two.  “He’s sailin’ a boat when he ain’t playin’ cards or scarin’ everybody down to the beach with his gun, or shyin’ things at Meg.”

“Don’t you mind anything Martha says, Lucy,” interrupted Jane in a defensive tone.  “He’s got a great many very good qualities; he has no mother and the captain has never looked after him.  It’s a great wonder that he is not worse than he is.”

She knew Martha had spoken the truth, but she still hoped that her influence might help him, and then again, she never liked to hear even her acquaintances criticised.

“Playing cards!  That all?” exclaimed Lucy, arching her eyebrows; her sister’s excuses for the delinquent evidently made no impression on her.  “I don’t think playing cards is very bad; and I don’t blame him for throwing anything he could lay his hands on at this little wretch of Martha’s.  We all played cards up in our rooms at school.  Miss Sarah never knew anything about it—­she thought we were in bed, and it was just lovely to fool her.  And what does the immaculate Dr. John Cavendish look like?  Has he changed any?” she added with a laugh.