"They're as like as two peas, Ben,—did ye note?—only one's more so than t'other."
It seemed to Noll, while on this homeward walk, that nothing was lacking to make home pleasant, now that Ned had come. His friend's presence did not seem a reality, as yet, and he had to listen a long time to Ned's merry chatter before he could realize that it was actually Ned Thorn who was walking beside him in this purple twilight, along the shore of the glimmering, sounding sea.
"What a queer place!" said Ned, stopping, at the curve of the shore, to look off at the horizon, which seemed to rise higher than their heads, and turning to look at the dark wall of rock behind them; "and what a lonesome sound the waves make! I should have died of the blues in three weeks. And what a miserable set those fishermen are! They all seem to like you, though. Did you see how they made way for us, and touched their caps, some of them? What a capital place to fish, off those rocks! I'm glad I brought hooks and lines, and—What's that light ahead? A lighthouse?"
"No, only Hagar's kitchen window," said Noll; "Hagar's our black cook, and there's only three of us in that great house, Ned!"
"I should think you'd lose each other! Is your uncle like your father at all?"
"No, Uncle Richard's not much like papa," said Noll, with sudden graveness; "but he loves me, and—and I hope you'll like him, Ned."
They walked the rest of the way in silence till they came to the piazza steps under the shadow of the great stone house.
"It looks just as it did when I saw it first," said Noll,—"the sea getting dark and shadowy and making that lonesome sound on the pebbles, and oh, how I had to rap and search before I could find my way in! But come on, Ned."
Noll led his friend along the echoing hall, straight to Uncle Richard's library, where the lamp had been lighted.
"This is Ned Thorn, Uncle Richard," said he, as they entered, "and he's come clear from Hastings to see me."