“Just look at that child, Isabel!” said a tall, bronzed gentleman who was leaning over the taff-rail. “She is a perfect little fury! I never saw a pair of eyes flash so. Very fine eyes they are, too. A very beautiful child. Isabel! why, my dear, what is the matter? You are ill—faint! let me—”
But the lady at his side pushed his arm away, and leaned forward, her eyes fixed upon Star's face.
“George,” she said, in a low, trembling voice, “I want to know who that child is. I must know, George! Find out for me, dear, please!”
As she spoke, she made a sign towards the boat, so earnest, so imperative, that it caught Star's wandering gaze. Their eyes met, and the little child in the pink calico frock, and the stately lady in the India shawl, gazed at each other as if they saw nothing else in the world. The gentleman looked from one to the other in amazement.
“Isabel!” he whispered, “the child looks like you. What can this mean?”
But little Star, in the old black boat, cried, “Take me away, Bob! take me home to my Daddy Captain! Quick! do you hear?”
“Jes' so” said Bob Peet. “Nat'rally!”
CHAPTER IV. — THE VISIT
A gray day! soft gray sky, like the breast of a dove; sheeny gray sea, with gleams of steel running across; trailing skirts of mist shutting off the mainland, leaving Light Island alone with the ocean; the white tower gleaming spectral among the folding mists; the dark pine-tree pointing a sombre finger to heaven; the wet, black rocks, from which the tide had gone down, huddling together in fantastic groups as if to hide their nakedness.