"Where have you been?" asked her aunt. "I hope you were under shelter during that downpour."
"I was in Miss Phosie's kitchen at first," Gwen told her, "but it was so glorious I had to go down to the rocks to watch it all."
"And in consequence no doubt your feet are sopping wet. I'll have a fire made in the fireplace at once."
"No, please don't. The sun is shining hot on the back porch. I'll change my shoes and wet skirt and sit out there."
"You'd better have a fire," persisted Miss Elliott, and had her way, for, as Gwen said, "When Aunt Cam really determines to do a thing she manages to carry her point. That is why she was such a success in China. If she said a patient must swallow a pill he had to do it."
And therefore it was sitting by the open fire that Luther Williams found the two a little later on. As he stood in the doorway in his fisherman's garb, flannel shirt, trousers tucked into high boots, Miss Elliott found no suggestion of that elusive likeness which had puzzled her more than once. She welcomed him cordially. "Come right in, Mr. Williams," she said. "What is the news?"
"I've come to report no wrecks so far as discovered," he told her. "Your niece was afraid the storm might have done some serious damage about here, but so far as we know all are safe. I looked off toward Jagged Island just before I started, Miss Gwen, and I think your friends are on their way. The sea has calmed down and they'll have no trouble getting in."
"Ethel and Mr. Mitchell, Aunt Cam," Gwen explained. "They happened to choose this of all days to go over, and I am afraid they were drenched."
"There's a house over there, you know," volunteered Mr. Williams, "and it's probable they took shelter there."
"No doubt they are safe then," returned Gwen, "and—and Cap'n Ben's boat, Mr. Williams?"