Quite unaware of what was going on, Mrs. Harcourt continued:
"As I was saying, Gwen is really very unusual, and original, and at the same time, she is so very sweet tempered, that——," but the sentence was interrupted by the appearance upon the piazza of a rough looking fisherman, and a drenched, and very dirty small girl, whose sailor frock was wet with sea water, and be-daubed with cement. Her eyes were red and swollen with crying, her hair had lost its ribbon, and hung about her face. Truly she did not look attractive.
"Could any of you fine ladies put down your needles long 'nough ter hear where I found this little lass?" said the man, "fer she looks like she needed 'tendin' to."
Gwen could at once have run to her mother, but she chose to cling to the fisherman's rough hand, and be gazed upon as an abused child. Mrs. Harcourt, trying to decide which shade of silk to use, did not even look up. She did not dream that Gwen had returned.
So surprised were the guests that, for the moment, no one spoke, and the man continued:
"Me'n' my mates found her floating out ter sea in a ol' tub what the carpenters had been usin' fer cement, an' we pulled her in. As the tub was a leakin', I guess 'twas 'bout time 'less ye wanted her ter be drownded."
A shrill cry from Mrs. Harcourt followed by the sound of hurrying feet, and then:
"Oh, Gwen, my dear! Come away from that rough man!" she cried, and the instant silence showed the disgust that her words had provoked.
"Wal, I s'pose that's the kind of thanks that a poor feller can expect from a lady 'ristocrat!" said the fisherman as he turned to go, "but I'll say one thing more, an' that is that the young lad named Max is 'sponsible for the mischief. It was him what coaxed the little lass inter that ol' tub, an' then run off ter play."
"Three cheers for this man!" cried a young fellow who had listened intently, and the guests responded with a will, and Mrs. Harcourt from the hall whence she had vanished with Gwen, wondered what it was all about.