Dories went to the bedside and, almost timidly, she touched the wrinkled head. “Don’t you feel well today, Aunt Jane!” she asked, feeling in her heart a sudden pity for the old woman. “Isn’t there something I could do for you?”
For one fleeting moment there was that strange expression in the dark, deeply-sunken eyes. It might have been a hungry yearning for love and affection. Impulsively the girl kissed the sallow cheek, but the elderly woman had closed her eyes and she did not open them again, and so Nann and Dories tiptoed out to the kitchen.
“Poor Aunt Jane!” the latter began. “She hasn’t had much love in her life. I don’t remember just how it was. She was engaged to marry somebody once. Then something happened and she didn’t. After that, Mother says she just shut herself up in that fine home of hers outside of Boston and grieved.”
“Poor Aunt Jane, indeed!” Nann commented as she began to prepare the breakfast. “She must be haunted by many of the ghosts that your mother told about, memories of loving deeds that she might have done. With her money and her home, she could have made many people happy, but instead she has spent her life just being sorry for herself.” Then more brightly, “I’m glad we can both go sailing with Gib.”
Half an hour later, the girls in their bright colored sweater-coats and tams raced across the beach. The red-headed boy was on the watch for them and he soon had the punt alongside the broad rock which served as a dock. “Do you want passengers this morning?” Nann called gaily.
“Sure sartin!” was the prompt reply. Then, when the two girls were seated on the broad seat in the stem the lad hauled in the sheet and away they went scudding. “Where are you going, Gib?” Nann inquired curiously.
“We’ll cruise ’long the water side o’ the ol’ ruin,” he told them. “Pa says he’s sure sartin he saw a light burnin’ thar agin late las’ night, an’ like’s not, we’ll see suthin’.”
CHAPTER XV.
A GLOOMY SWAMP
The girls were as eager as the boy to view the old ruin from the water, and the breeze being brisk, they were quickly blown down the coast and into the quiet sheltered water beyond the point. “O, Gib,” Dories cried fearfully, “do be careful! There are logs under the water along here that come nearly to the top. Is it a wreck?”
“No, ’taint. It’s all that’s left of the long dock I was tellin’ yo’ about whar the Phantom Yacht used to tie up. Pa said ol’ Colonel Wadbury had lights clear to the end of it and that, when ’twas lit up, ’twas a purty sight.”