"Well, true enough, my head was so full of that fellow, Thrasher, that I forgot that it might be some other person you were crying about. It's hard, waiting and waiting in this way; but we must have patience, I suppose."
"I'll go now," said the girl, rising.
Little Rose, with the sweet instinct of childhood, came up to where the young girl stood, and lifted up her arms for a kiss.
Katharine bent down, with a flutter of the heart, and left a kiss on the little rosebud of a mouth, but her lips quivered, and the child grew sad under the mournful caress.
When Katharine Allen was gone, Mrs. Mason sat down to her work again. She was a vain, self-sufficient woman, but not in reality an unkind one. The distress which she had just witnessed left her in low spirits. She was naturally of a hopeful disposition, and, in truth, was quite incapable of the deep feeling which had disturbed her in Katharine. Something would turn up and set all things right, she was sure of that; contrary winds, heavy freight—there was some such reason why the brig did not come to port; what was the use of fretting while these chances remained. As these consoling thoughts passed through her mind, she plied her needle with increasing diligence. Rose must have her new frock embroidered before her father came home. A few more leaves in the vine that enriched the skirt, and it would be completed. Mrs. Mason was almost out of bread, or any thing from which bread is made, but she was a woman to cover unsuitable garments with useless embroidery, rather than turn her hand to any thing by which her necessities could be supplied. She would rather have seen little Rose hungry a thousand times than ill dressed.
CHAPTER XII.
HOME FROM SEA.
While Mrs. Mason sat plying her needle, little Rose wandered about the room, wondering what made pretty Katharine Allen so very sorrowful, but keeping the thoughts to herself. In the stillness, she heard a step on the gravel walk outside the house. Then a white lilac bush near the window was disturbed, and she saw a man's face close to the glass. The child would have cried out, but the tongue clove to her mouth, and she stood transfixed with fear. She saw the door softly opened, and a strange man step to the threshold. Then her voice broke forth, and pointing her finger at the stranger, she cried out:
"Mother, mother! it's somebody from the sea!" Mrs. Mason dropped both hands in her lap, and gazed breathlessly on the man. Every tint of color left her handsome face; she tried to speak, but could not. The man was so pale and so wild of countenance that she might well have been stricken with deadly fear.
"Nelson Thrasher," she faltered at last.