["I'll run up to the light to dress," she said]
["Oh, sugar, Heppy! What's the matter o' ye?"]
["We must do something!" she cried. "Tobias! We *must*!"]
TOBIAS O' THE LIGHT
CHAPTER I
A CRY IN THE NIGHT
Old Winter wrapped in his grave clothes stalked the flats and sand dunes about the Twin Rocks Light. Spring had smiled at the grim old fellow only the day before. She would flutter back again anon to dry the longshore wastes and warm to life the scant herbage that tries its best to clothe the Cape Cod barrens.
But now the wind blew and the sleet charged against the staff of the lighthouse, masking thickly the glass that defended the huge Argand lamp. Its steady ray filtered through this curtain with difficulty.
Tobias Bassett pulled on his oilskins and buckled down the sou'wester over his ears preparatory to venturing upon the high gallery to scrape the clinging snow from the glass.
"You have a care what you're doing up there, slipping around outside the light," advised his sister Hephzibah, who should have been named "Martha," being cumbered by so many cares. "You ain't so young as you used to be, Tobias."