"I was at sea in my father's ship," said Mercedes proudly.
"Ah, I didn't know Jamie McMurtagh owned a ship," said Miss Dolly. Jamie leaned closer to the window.
"Jamie McMurtagh is not my father," said Mercedes. She said it almost scornfully, and McMurtagh slunk back into the cabin.
Perhaps it was the first time he had ever cried himself.... He felt so sorry that he had not thought of gloves!
VIII.
When they came to the wharf, several carriages were waiting. Some were handsome equipages with silver-mounted harnesses (for nabobs then were in Nahant); others were the familiar New England carryalls. Mercedes looked for Mr. Bowdoin, hoping he had come to meet her in one of the former, but was disappointed, for that gentleman was seen running down the hill as if too late, his blue dress-coat tails streaming in the wind, his Panama hat in one hand, and a large brown-paper bag, bursting with oranges, in the other. By accident or design, as he neared the wharf, the bag did burst, and all the oranges went rolling down the road.
"Pick 'em up, children, pick 'em up!" gasped Mr. Bowdoin. "Findings keepings, you know." And he broke into a chuckle as the two smaller girls precipitated themselves upon the rolling orange-spheres as if they were footballs, and Master Harley, in his anxiety to stop one that was rolling over the wharf, tripped upon the hawser, and was grabbed by a friendly sailor just as he himself was rolling after it into the sea.
"You don't seem to care for oranges, Miss Dolly," said Mr. Bowdoin, as Miss Dowse stood haughtily aloof; and he looked then at Mercedes, who was left quite alone, yet followed Miss Dowse's example of dignity; Jamie standing behind, not beside her, hat in hand.
"Ah, Ja— Mr. McMurtagh," said Mr. Bowdoin, doffing his own. "And so this is our Miss Mercy again? Why don't you chase the oranges, my dear?"