HE BENT DOWN TO OBSERVE HER MORE CLOSELY.
"Miss Whitridge!" he exclaimed. "I am glad to see you, but what on earth are you doing 'way up here in Maine?"
"I might ask you the same question, for I am wondering how you discovered this fairest island in Casco Bay. I have a perfectly legitimate right to all it offers, for my aunt and I have arrived at the distinction of being cottagers, while you, I suppose, are a mere ship that passes in the night, and are just stopping over at the Grange for a few days."
"You are wrong, quite wrong. I have as good a right here as you. My sister has also become a householder, and I am here to see her through the dangers and difficulties of a first season on the island. She has rented a cottage over yonder," he nodded in the direction from which he had come, "and I am out on a forage for milk. We haven't had supper yet and my sister pines for a cup of tea, but cannot drink it 'dry so,' as they say down in Georgia. Were you going to walk back, and may I walk with you? I shall get lost, I am certain, unless you pilot me."
"I was going as far as the open, but as it is so little further I can as well shorten my walk that much, and it is getting dark."
"Aren't you a little scared to be coming along this dim path by night?"
"Why should I be? There is nothing in the world to be afraid of. I could walk the length and breadth of the island at midnight, and be perfectly safe. That is one of the joys of being here, this feeling of absolute security." She turned about, and the two bent their steps to where Cap'n Ben's house showed whitely in the distance.