None noticed the flush and troubled frown on old John Dunlap’s face. Burton’s crossed legs had drawn his trousers tightly around the limb below the knee, revealing an almost total absence of calf and that the little existing was placed higher up than usually is the case. That peculiarity or something never to be explained had brought some Haitian scene back to the memory of the flushed and frowning old man and sent a pang of regret and fear through his kind heart.
“God bless and keep you, lad! Jack, you are the last of the Dunlaps,” said Mr. John Dunlap solemnly as they all stood in the hall when the sailor was leaving.
“Amen! most earnestly, Amen!” added Mr. James Dunlap, placing his hand on Jack’s shoulder.
“Good-by! dear Jack,” said Lucy sorrowfully while tears filled her eyes, when she stood at the outer door of the hall holding her cousin’s hand.
“Think of me on the twentieth of next month, my wedding day,” she added, and then drawing the hand that she held close to her breast as if still clinging to some old remembrance and anxious to keep fast hold of the past, fearful that it would escape her, she exclaimed:
“Remember, you are still my trusty knight and champion, Jack!”
“Until death, Lucy,” replied the man, as he raised the little white hand to his lips and reverently kissed it.
She stood watching the retreating figure until it was hidden by the gloom of the ghostly elms that lined the avenue. As she turned Burton was at her side.
“How horribly lonely Jack must be, Walter,” she said in pitying tones.