The village itself was greatly stirred.
"Have you seen them two fly-up-the-creeks?" Billy Tatham, the stage-driver, asked of Uncle Ephraim Tipple as he was driving him down to the boat-landing.
"No, what do they look like?"
"The He-one had on a two-inch hat with a green ribbon and wore a white bob-tail coat that 'bout reached to the top o' his pants. Looks like he lived on water-crackers and milk, his skin's that white. The She-one had a set o' hoops on her big as a circus tent. Much as I could do to git her in the 'bus—as it was, she come in sideways. And her trunk! Well, it oughter been on wheels—one o' them travellin' houses. I thought one spell I'd take the old plug out the shafts and hook on to it and git it up that-a-way."
"Some of Lucy's chums, I guess," chuckled Uncle Ephraim. "Miss Jane told me they were coming. How long are they going to stay?"
"Dunno. Till they git fed up and fattened, maybe. If they was mine I'd have killin' time to-day."
Ann Gossaway and some of her cronies also gave free rein to their tongues.
"Learned them tricks at a finishin' school, did they?" broke out the dressmaker. (Lucy had been the only young woman in Warehold who had ever enjoyed that privilege.) "Wearin' each other's hats, rollin' round in the sand, and hollerin' so you could hear 'em clear to the lighthouse. If I had my way I'd finish 'em, And that's where they'll git if they don't mind, and quick, too!"
The Dellenbaughs, Cromartins, and Bunsbys, being of another class, viewed the young couple's visit in a different light. "Mr. Feilding has such nice hands and wears such lovely cravats," the younger Miss Cromartin said, and "Miss Collins is too sweet for anything." Prim Mr. Bunsby, having superior notions of life and deportment, only shook his head. He looked for more dignity, he said; but then this Byronic young man had not been invited to any of the outings.
In all these merrymakings and outings Lucy was the central figure. Her beauty, her joyous nature, her freedom from affectation and conventionality, her love of the out-of-doors, her pretty clothes and the way she wore them, all added to her popularity. In the swing and toss of her freedom, her true temperament developed. She was like a summer rose, making everything and everybody glad about her, loving the air she breathed as much for the color it put into her cheeks as for the new bound it gave to her blood. Just as she loved the sunlight for its warmth and the dip and swell of the sea for its thrill. So, too, when the roses were a glory of bloom, not only would she revel in the beauty of the blossoms, but intoxicated by their color and fragrance, would bury her face in the wealth of their abundance, taking in great draughts of their perfume, caressing them with her cheeks, drinking in the honey of their petals.