[Ill.u.s.tration: "I'll run up to the light to dress," she said.]

"Your eyesight will have to be pretty average good, then," drawled Tobias.

"Why?" she asked, hesitating.

"He's left."

"Why, he was with us down at Lower Trillion!"

"Ya-as. I know. He come back up here with Zeke in the automobile, changed his clothes, packed his sea chist, and went on with Zeke to Clinkerport. Heppy's fair put out. She'd made a heap of fishb.a.l.l.s for supper. Cal'late you an' Ralph better stop an' help us eat 'em, Lorny."

"Thank you. As Mr. Degger has gone I will go home immediately," the girl said. "Good evening, Mr. Ba.s.sett." She did not even cast a scornful glance at Ralph.

"Oh, sugar!" was Tobias's comment.

CHAPTER XIV

A VARIETY OF HAPPENINGS

Ralph remained at the lighthouse and did justice to the fishcakes. Miss Heppy was "all in a stew," as Tobias said, over the sudden departure of the boarder.

"I'm fair troubled that he wasn't satisfied with our table," the good woman said. "Fishb.a.l.l.s and brown loaf and clam chowder and johnnycake and baked beans Sat.u.r.day night and Sundays, is pretty tryin', I do allow, to them as ain't used to it. We never do have a piece of fresh meat."

"Oh, sugar!" chuckled Tobias. "Don't belittle your fodder, Heppy. You air a mighty good cook as fur as you go. If you had all kinds of fancy doo-dads you wouldn't know how to cook 'em, you know you wouldn't."

"What do you s'pose cookbooks was made for, Tobias Ba.s.sett?" demanded Miss Heppy.

"I cal'late they make good pipe-lights," rejoined her brother, suiting his action to his word as he stood at the mantel after supper and rolled himself a spill of a page of the culinary guide in question. "Come, Ralph, le's go up and see if the light is burning bright. 'You in your small corner, an' I in mine.' That allus seemed a cheerful sort o' hymn to me.

"Huh!" he added. "Got your own little packet of coffin-nails? That Degger feller was always havin' one o' them things stuck in a corner of his mouth."

Ralph promptly threw away the cigarette and filled his pipe from Tobias's sack of tobacco. The lightkeeper led the way, chuckling. When they reached the lamp room the old man turned a curious eye on his young friend and bluntly demanded:

"Tell us all about it, Ralphie. I see the mention of our ex-boarder stirred you up. What made him in such a hurry to leave us?"

"Don't tell Miss Heppy," begged Ralph, "but I guess it is my fault that she's lost her boarder."

"You ought to have a leather medal for bringing it about," declared Tobias. "I certain sure was glad to see him go. What happened? He and Lorny got out in my boat while I was asleep. I can't be about and stirrin' to watch the weather for 'em _all_ the time."

Ralph briefly narrated the adventure while Tobias listened, puffing at his pipe and nodding his head.

"I cal'late Lorny's got something to thank you for, then?" he suggested.

Ralph laughed harshly.

"You saw how she acted when we came ash.o.r.e. Did she seem overpoweringly grateful?"

"Oh, sugar!" chuckled Tobias. "What chance did you give her to fall on your neck and tell you how much she thought of you?"

"Now, Tobias Ba.s.sett! I don't want any girl to fall on my neck. Least of all Lorna Nicholet."

"Ain't ready yet to sacrifice yourself' for the good of her family?"

"I won't see a fellow like Conway Degger fool her," growled Ralph. "I will break up his game all right. But I tell you Lorna would not marry me on a bet."

"Oh, sugar! She's something of a sport, Lorny is. I cal'late you ain't ever made her that proposition?"

"Really, I don't have to wait for a ton of coal to fall on me to take a hint," Ralph said, but looking away from the amused lightkeeper.

"No? I dunno 'bout that," muttered Tobias, who found his matchmaking with this rather dense young fellow somewhat uphill work. "I'd like to see Lorny get a good fellow with as much money as you've got, Ralph, and almost as much sense."

"Huh!"

"And that Degger don't fill the bill."

"If he doesn't let her alone--"

"Yep. That's all right. But in removing him from the scene you don't give Lorny no other play-toy. And she's been used to having a chap at her beck an' call all of the time. You know that."

"But, Tobias! She doesn't want me. She has shown plainly enough that she cares nothing for me."

"Oh, sugar! I don't see how it is that you young fellers understand so little about womenfolks."

"To hear you talk! And you not even married!"

"That's why," rejoined Tobias slyly. "I cal'late I understand 'em too well. Now, s'posin' Lorna was a gal you'd just met and you was stuck on her? S'posin' you wanted to make a good impression on her-eh? How would you go about it? S'posin' you was really fallin' in love with Lorny?"

Ralph slowly flushed. The smoke from his pipe choked him-or seemed to.

He coughed and turned from Tobias again.

Actually he was seeing in his mind's vision a tiny, milk-white, blue-veined foot sticking out of the leg of a pair of oilcloth overalls.

But Lorna Nicholet possessed dignity, too. Nor did she have always to wait on the ruffling of her temper to show it.

Miss Ida chanced to suffer an infrequent headache on this evening and there were guests at dinner, although it was quite an informal affair.

An hour after she had run barefooted and in Ralph's suit of oilskins, along the beach and up the path to the house on Clay Head, Lorna, in a perfect dinner toilet, slipped into the seat at the head of the table after her father and his guests were seated.

There are raveled edges at every dinner to be hemmed. The perfectly served meal is usually the one over which the hostess has worried her nerves to the raw. There was a new maid-of the usual kind one gets at the seash.o.r.e-and Lorna was obliged to cover her deficiencies and carry on at the same time a spirited conversation with the women guests.

The men were seated at her father's end of the table, and Lorna sensed early in the meal that this was a semi-business gathering. The wives had been brought along to make the occasion seem less like a board-room wrangle.

Now and then Lorna heard a few words of the business discussion that went steadily on from cherry-stone clams to black coffee, like an organ accompaniment to the chatter of feminine voices.

"But we can't count on Endicott."