A Little Country Girl

AUTHOR OF THE NEW YEAR'S BARGAIN, WHAT KATY DID, A GUERNSEY LILY, ETC.
BOSTON: ROBERTS BROTHERS. 1895.

Copyright, 1885 , By Roberts Brothers. University Press: John Wilson and Son, Cambridge.


T was on one of the cool, brilliant days which early June brings to the Narragansett country, that the steamer Eolus pushed out from Wickford Pier on her afternoon trip to Newport. The sky was of a beautiful translucent blue; the sunshine had a silvery rather than a golden radiance. A sea-wind blew up the Western Passage, so cool as to make the passengers on the upper deck glad to draw their wraps about them. The low line of the mainland beyond Conanicut and down to Beaver Tail glittered with a sort of clear-cut radiance, and seemed lifted a little above the water. Candace Arden heard the Captain say that he judged, from the look of things, that there was going to be a change of weather before long.
Captain Peleg King was a great favorite on his line of travel. He had a pleasant, shrewd face, grizzled hair, a spare, active figure; and he seemed to notice every one of his passengers and to take an interest in them.
Going down to Newport, Miss? he said to Candace, after giving her one or two quick looks.
The question was superfluous, for the Eolus went nowhere else except to Newport; but it was well-meant, for the Captain thought that Candace seemed lonely and ill at ease, and he wished to cheer her.