Blanche Aurora's prey could not so easily escape her. She had been left in charge of Linda and she followed her now to the porch: that exciting porch surmounting a castle wall of rock, with soft niches of green where Nature's mother-hand found vulnerable spots to plant her lovely ferns and flowers.
To Blanche Aurora the situation of the cottage was objectionably noisy and windy, and she often wished her employer's house could be moved back on the road where one could see the passing. She scowled now against the dazzling sun and boisterous wind.
"Be you goin' to set out here?" she roared at Linda.
"How beautiful it is!" escaped involuntarily from the guest.
"Then I'll git you some warm things. You're sick and delicate!" yelled Blanche Aurora as one whom the roar of old Ocean could not down.
Linda looked at the slim child in the faded gingham. The salt air went through her piercingly.
"I'm not delicate at all!" she protested, but little cared her mentor for her defense.
She straightway brought a steamer-rug, shawl and pillows from a near-by closet.
"There!" she said, depositing them in the hammock on the glassed-in end of the porch. She gave her queer little grimace of a smile and again her thin cheeks wrinkled. "Miss Barry said you looked like a hothouse plant, so I guess you'd better stay under glass for a spell."
"Aren't you cold yourself in that cal—that thin dress?" asked Linda.