The Lady of the Aroostook

er luggage came dragging her trunk and bag down the gangway stairs. Neither was very

at her look of inquiry. He went into her room, and pushing aside the valance of the lower berth showed four deep dr

as a bureau. They w

. You won't find a better stateroom than this on a steamer. I've been on 'em." The boy climbed up on the edge of the upper drawer, and pulled open the window at t

uickly. "I'd just a

when you've got 'em empty. If I shouldn't happen to be here, you can just call me at the top of the gangway, and I'll come. My name's Thomas," he said. He regarded Lydia inquiringly a moment before he added: "If you'd just as lives, I rath

you Thomas,

u hurry. I shall be down here, laying the table for supper, before you're done. The captain said I was to lay it for you and him, a

ay her dresses out on the locker. Homesickness, like all grief, attacks in paroxysms. One gust of passionate regret h

is daughters went out. I guess it was their coaxing go

ed Lydia, sym

ut it at the time; so little

They died a long while ago. I've alway

ur grandfather," said the boy. "I don't see why you don't let me c

itself in her voice and manner, but something of the habitual authority of a schoo

a-and I was-I couldn't get such another captain as Captain Jenness, nor such another crew; all the men from down our way; and I d

was finding it rather crumpled. "I shouldn't have thought it would have got so much jammed, coming fifty miles," she soliloquized. "But they seemed to take

ss!" he said. "Just new, ain't it

smoothing and shaping the dress, which she regarded a

he latest style?"

oston for the pattern. I hate to pack i

ed Thomas. "There's

Thomas into her state-room. "Well, well! T

feel kind of lonesome." Lydia clasped her hands in pleasure and amaze. "Oh, I tell you Captain Jenness meant to have things about right. The other state-rooms don't begin to come up to this." He dashed out in hi

r her, in the same attitude as before. "I tell you," he said, "I shal

erself. In dress, as in person and manner, she was uncompromisingly plain and stiff. All the more lavishly, therefore, had it been devoted to the grace and beauty of her sister's child, who, ever since she came to find a home in her grandfather's house, had been more stylishly dressed than any other girl in the village. The summer boarders, whom the keen eye of Miss Latham studied with unerring sense of the best new effects in costume, wondered at Lydia's elegance, as she sat beside her aunt in the family pew, a triumph of that grim artist's skill. Lydia knew that she was well dressed, but she knew that after all she was only the expression of her aunt's inspirations. Her own gift was of another sort. Her father was a music-teacher, whose failing health had obliged him to give up his profession, and who had taken the traveling agency of a parlor organ manufactory for the sake of the out-d

ond marriage at Naples one of those Englishmen who have money enough to live at ease in Latin countries; he was very fond of her, and petted her. Having no children she might long before have thought definitely of poor Henry's little girl, as she called Lydia, but she had lived very comfortably indefinite in regard to her ever since the father's death. Now and then she had sent the child a handsome present or a sum of money. She had it on her conscience not to let her be wholly a burden to her grandfather; but often her

ydia to come out to her at once, and she suggested that, as they could have few opportunities or none to send her with people going to Europe, they had better let her come the whole way by sea. Mrs. Erwin remembered-in the space of a page and a half-that nothing had ever done her so much good as a long sea voyage, and it would be excellent for Lydia, who, though she looked so strong, probably needed all the bracing up she could get. She had made inquiries,-or, what was the same thin

deacon appeared there. The captain took cordial possession of the old man at once, and carried him down to the wharf to look at the ship and her accommodations. The matter was quickly settled between them. At that

he held some cuffs and collars in her hand, and something that her aunt Maria had said recurred to her. She looked up into the i

t?" he asked, half piteously, half indign

d happen to want doing up, I had better get the stewardess to help me."

to begin that way!" h

I like boys. I've taught school two

y interested again. "T

y n

y young for a s

g fun of me," sai

e been, and was consoled. "

I won't any more. There!" she said, "I'm not going to open m

egan to set the table. It was a pretty table, when set, and made the little cabin much cosier. When the boy brought the dishes from the cook's galley, it was a barbarously abundant table. There was cold boiled

s?" echo

e in port," th

stows upon youth after the swift succession of strange events, and the confl

he glow. It was a summer sunset, portending for the land a morrow of great heat. But cool airs crept along the water, and the ferry-boats, thrust shuttlewise back and forth between either shore, made a refreshing sound as they crushed a broad course to foam with their paddles. People were pulling about in small boats; from some the gay cries and laughter of young girls struck sharply along the tide. The noise of the quiescent city came off in a sor