"Well, Heppy, how do you do?" she asked, her voice mellow and full.
"How has the winter gone with you?"
""Bout the same as usual, Miss Ida," the lightkeeper"s sister replied.
"You _be_ a pretty sight. None o" the young ones can put anything over you, Miss Ida. You ain"t got a wrinkle or a fleck of gray in your head."
Miss Ida laughed. "I"m forty-two. I"m frank to admit it. Why shouldn"t a woman be well preserved and in good health at my age if she has never made herself a slave to some man?"
"For love"s sake! As for _that_, I ain"t never been married. But look at my wrinkles!"
"Those are creases, not wrinkles, in your case, Heppy," laughed the visitor. "You are getting too fat. And you have been practically a slave for Tobias."
"Sure she has," agreed the lightkeeper grinning. "I"ve been thinking of putting a nose-ring on her. She"s abused, all right."
"You hush, Tobias! I ain"t slaved for n.o.body _but_ him, Miss Ida,"
declared Hephzibah warmly. "While you, Miss Ida, have shouldered the responsibility for your brother and all his family. If you"d married,"
added the longsh.o.r.e woman wisely, "like enough you wouldn"t have had nowhere near so big a family to care for."
"I wonder?" laughed the other woman. Yet her expressive countenance became immediately serious. "My family is pretty well grown now, Heppy.
I am sure even Lorna is old enough to make a nest for herself. She has been out two years."
"Out o" what?" Tobias asked, taking the pipe from his mouth and staring.
"Looks to me as though she was well supplied with most everything a young gal ought to have, an" wasn"t out o" nothing."
"I mean she has been in society two years."
"Oh, sugar! That"s a case, is it, of when you"re _out_, you"re _in_?"
chuckled the lightkeeper. "I give it as my opinion that the only thing Lorny lacks is a good husband."
Miss Ida flushed softly. "I hope she will see the advisability of choosing wisely in that matter," the aunt said, speaking intimately to these two old friends, at the expression of whose interest in her family affairs she was far too sensible to take offence.
"Yes," she pursued. "You know what hopes her father and I have for her.
An eminently fitting alliance. And Ralph is a manly fellow. It does seem as though those two were quite made for each other."
"Humph! Yes. "Twould seem so," muttered Tobias. "But it does appear sometimes as though the very things that _ought_ to be don"t somehow come around to happen."
"You are a philosopher, Tobias."
"Dunno as that"s a compliment, Miss Ida," rejoined the lightkeeper, his eyes twinkling. "I got all my wits about me yet, and most of them philosophers you hear tell about ain"t. They get on some hobby and ride it to death. And a man ain"t really broad-minded unless he can see both sides to a question.
"Now, takin" the chances for and against your Lorna and Ralph Endicott marryin". What would you say, Miss Ida, was the one best bet?"
He looked up at her shrewdly, holding his pipe with that familiar gesture of his. Miss Ida"s gravity grew more profound.
"I believe you and Heppy must know that of late my niece and Ralph have seemed to fret one another?" she queried.
"They give themselves away some when they stopped over here that time they got stalled in Ralph"s car," admitted Tobias. "Warn"t it jest a leetle spat?"
"I am afraid not. They have not seemed the same since. And I am afraid it is Lorna"s fault," sighed Miss Ida. "She is so hot-tempered. I have warned her. The families have never considered any other possible outcome but an alliance between Lorna and Ralph. I have told her so."
"I cal"late you have," murmured Tobias softly, pulling on his pipe again.
"When she returns from New York-as she will in a day or two-I shall put the matter to her very strongly. If you and Heppy have noticed their drifting asunder, other people must have noticed it too. The Nicholets would be utterly disgraced if it were said that Ralph Endicott-er-dropped Lorna. And if he should, I fear it will be my niece"s own fault."
When she was gone Tobias snorted suddenly.
"Oh, sugar!" he said. "If I scorch "em a mite graced, I want to know, when Miss Ida"s love affair with Professor Endicott busted up? Seems to me that leetle gal, Lorny, is going to be put upon by her folks. _That_ won"t do."
"Now, do try to mind your own business, Tobias," advised his sister, comfortably rocking. "I know it will be hard for you to do so. But you"ll burn your fingers, like enough, if you don"t."
The lightkeeper spread out his gnarled, work-blunted fingers to observe them reflectively.
"Oh, sugar!" he said. "If I scorch "em a mite helping that leetle gal and Ralph Endicott out o" their muss, what"s the odds, Heppy? You know, we"re put here to help each other."
"That is what most folks say that have an itch for minding other people"s business. Now, you have a care what you do, Tobias Ba.s.sett."
CHAPTER IX
THE DROP OF WORMWOOD
When Lorna Nicholet first appeared at the Twin Rocks Light after arriving at her summer home, she gave no evidence of needing the lightkeeper"s-or any other person"s-good offices. She was her usual brisk, contented and fun-loving self.
Conway Degger chanced to be present when Lorna came to the Light. Miss Ida had not seen the young man when she had called on Tobias and Heppy.
"What a surprise, Mr. Degger!" the girl said, giving him a warmly welcoming hand. "I had no idea you were in this locality."
"I am a waif from the sea, Miss Nicholet," he told her. "You ask the skipper, here, about it. I can never thank him enough. And Miss Heppy, too, who has so kindly taken me in and ministered to my well-being."
"He says it pretty, don"t he now?" whispered Miss Heppy to Tobias.
"Pretty is as pretty does," muttered the lightkeeper. "Somehow them fanciful speeches of his"n don"t bait much trawl with me."
But Miss Heppy considered Conny Degger quite worthy of approval. Lorna found him interesting, too. Perhaps the very fact that her Aunt Ida had opposed her acquaintance with the young man caused Lorna to be the more contrary. And, really, Degger betrayed some rather attractive traits.
During the next few days the girl and the boarder at Twin Rocks Light became close companions. They went fishing together in Tobias"s dory.
They tramped the beach as far as the Lower Trillion life-saving station, Degger"s sprained foot being quite well again. And the young man appeared regularly on the Clay Head bathing beach at the morning bathing hour.
Among the few families already at the resort, who made up a little social world of their own, it soon became a topic of conversation-this companionship of Lorna Nicholet and Conny Degger. Particularly was it commented upon, because for so many summers the girl and Ralph Endicott had been such close chums.
Although the Endicotts had already arrived at the Clay Head, Ralph did not at once put in an appearance. This fact perhaps threw Lorna the more into Conny Degger"s company. Tongues began to wag.
"I should say," squeaked Amos Pickering, who was a very busy man these days because of the influx of summer visitors, "that Lorny Nicholet has got another feller. That long-laiged Endicott boy"s always been tagging her other summers. Now this here boarder you got, Tobias, is stickin"
to her like a barnacle. What d"ye think it"ll amount to?"
"I give it as my opinion," retorted the lightkeeper, pursing his lips, "that it won"t add none to your burdens, Amos. I don"t see no weddin"