“Uncle Josiah, don’t let me hear that again. I want to hear all about your voyage,” she demanded as she settled herself on the rocks, and motioned him near her.
“There wa’n’t none, that is, none to speak of.”
“Oh! But there was, and it must have been the most mysterious of all. You went in the night, and you came in the night. Did you do all your trading in the night, too, slipping about through the streets in some unknown country with moccasins on your feet, like you once told me about the Chinese?”
She laughed, but the Captain did not catch the restrained note and manner.
“There, now! That’s more like it!” he declared, joining in with a cracked laugh. “It seemed afore like I was talking to a young 299 lady I’d never seen. Feel more like I’d got back home with you laughing like that.”
“I haven’t been indulging much since you went away.”
“You ain’t?”
“But tell me about your trip.”
“You was right on most p’ints, excepting I didn’t cruise back in the night.”
“Then how did you slip into town so quietly and unseen? I’ve been sitting on these cold stones for two days looking for you.”