Rilla of the Lighthouse

by Grace May North

Gene leaped to her side when the girl turned away. “Muriel Storm,” he said, and there was a note of ringing sincerity in his voice, “you are a princess compared to most girls. Come with me, please, to greet my sister.”

She went reluctantly. She recalled what he had told her about his mother wishing him to care for this French girl of wealth and family and his sister Helen would probably feel the same way. Perhaps they would not be kind to her. How she wanted to run up to the light to the sheltering arms of her grandfather. But Gene held her hand in a firm clasp until they reached the top of the steps leading to the small wharf; then, releasing her, he went to greet the newcomers, turning at once to introduce Muriel. There was indeed a curling of the lips and a slight if almost imperceptible lifting of the eyebrows, but the “storm maiden” in Muriel had awakened, and it was with a proudly held head that she said: “Miss Carnot, I’m that glad to be able to return yo’re box, if ’tis yo’r’n.”

“It is indeed mine,” Marianne replied haughtily. “I will bid the man who rowed us over to get it, if you will tell him where it is. Later you shall receive the reward which my father offered for the return of my trunk.”

Muriel, her cheeks burning, was nevertheless about to comply when Gene leaped forward, saying: “I will show the oarsman where the trunk is, Rilla. You need not come.”

Luckily, at that moment the island girl heard her grandfather’s voice booming her name from the door of the light. Gene heard it, too, and he was glad that it offered his “storm maiden” an escape from further humiliation which he was powerless to prevent.

Later, when the trunk had been placed in the boat, and when Marianne was looking through its contents to be sure that nothing had been removed or ruined, Helen took the opportunity of speaking alone with her brother. She was truly glad to note that his health had been restored and she implored him to return with her for the holidays.

“Surely, brother,” Helen said, “you are strong enough now, and since it was to gain your strength that you came, why should you remain any longer? Gladys and Faith told me not to return without you. They both like to dance with you, and Marianne, I know has been eager to see you. She is hurt, I can tell, because you pay her so little attention today.”

Then glancing toward the lighthouse, where Muriel was standing close to her grand-dad, Helen added in a lower voice: “Of course, I know there is nothing serious in this companionship, Gene, but what would our mother say?”

What, indeed!

“Of course I shall be returning soon,” was all that he would say, “as I want to be back at college by the beginning of the winter term.” Gene spent a long, thoughtful hour alone on the cliff when his sister and the proud Marianne were gone. Muriel was busy preparing the noon meal, but she, too, was thoughtful. Her friend was well enough now to return to the city and ought she not urge him to go? Just before the visitors had been rowed over to Tunkett, Helen had ascended the flight of stairs leading to the light, and, taking the hand of the girl who lived there, she had said, almost pleadingly: “Won’t you please advise my brother to come home for the holidays? I can’t stay with him here and it’s going to be so lonely for me with mother and father away. I would go to them, but the vacation at midwinter will be too short.”