"How well you're looking, Bertha!" she said, as—now in the boat— Jasper pulled out from the sleepy little wharf. "You are as brown and rosy as any fisher-girl of us all."
As she spoke, half-idly, her glance taking in both figures before her, she could almost have sworn that a lightning-like eye-signal passed between them, before Bertha answered, with a conscious little laugh,—
"Well, I enjoy the life as if I had been born to it. Do you know, I can row—yes, and swim—as well as anybody, and I know all your old nooks, and"—
She paused suddenly, and Sara cried,—
"All mine? Why, who told you? Some of them you could never have found,
I'm sure."
Bertha blushed, but Jasper spoke up bravely,—
"Oh, I showed her. She's a great climber as you used to be, Sairay."
"That was nice of you, Jasper! So you know the 'Mermaid's Castle,' and the pine walk, and all?"
Bertha assented, then turned the subject to Mrs. Searle, the cottage, etc., while Sara began to have a dawning feeling that, possibly, she need not worry over Jasper's future happiness, at least to the exclusion of her own.
Miss Prue greeted her warmly; and everything was so exactly the same, from the white, curving beach, and long fish-sheds, the unpainted houses and the plants in the bow-windows, to the red and green carpet, and dragon-china in her little parlor, that Sara could hardly believe she had ever been away. Hester, seemingly not a day older, and wearing the identical turban she had last seen her in, Sara felt certain, greeted her with respectful warmth, and Polly grunted,—