As yet she was the peacemaker of the house, and all within it felt that this had been her mission to the household. Even the old family servants put their heads together confidentially, or shook them wisely, while they whispered:
“Whatever de trouble is atween de two, marster and mist’ess done been parted long a merry ago if it hadn’t been for little Glo’.”
Indeed, this Promontory Hall, with its high, enclosing walls, and the gray sea rolling around it, and the estranged, unhappy pair within it, must have been a very dull, dreary and depressing home for any child who had not, like Gloria, an ever springing fountain of gladness in her own soul.
As soon as the long winter was over, and the sun shone warm and bright, and the earth grew green and the sea blue, Gloria was out and abroad, with the earliest birds and flowers, as bright as the brightest, and as glad as the gladdest.
With the revival of all nature there was a great revival of business also in the fisheries appertaining to the Promontory and its neighboring isles. The place that was so solitary all the winter was now all alive with fishermen, whose huts and tents and sheds dotted all the little islands within sight from the promontory. No fishermen except those in the service of the family were allowed to haul the seines, or even cast a net from the home beach.
Among the fishermen attached to the service of the family was a young lad of about twelve years old. His parents had passed away, leaving him in the care of his grandmother, who lived in a tiny, sandy islet that stood alone, half a mile east of the promontory.
Who had been the original owner of the little sandhill no one ever knew; for the property was not of sufficient value to stimulate inquiries; and, besides, it had been for ages past occupied by a family of squatters, the present representatives of whom were David Lindsay and his grandmother.
It was on a brilliant May morning that the little Gloria, in her wanderings about the promontory, came to a broken part of the old sea-wall, and, instigated by curiosity, clambered over the stones and looked out upon a long stretch of sands upon which sheds, huts, and stranded boats were scattered among nets, seines, sea-weed and driftwood.
The child, standing in the breach of the wall, paused to gaze with interest on the rude scene that was so entirely new to her.
Then she saw a boy seated amid a drift of nets and seines, with a reel of coarse twine and a large wooden needle in his hand, busy with some work that quite absorbed his attention; for he neither saw nor heard the approach of the little girl.