CHAPTER XVI
STEPHEN BRAND EXPLAINS
They were interrupted. Elsie, with her golden hair and big blue eyes, pink cheeks and parted lips, appeared on the stairs. All that was visible was her head. She looked like one of Murillo's angels.
"Please, can Mamie 'n' me see the man?" she asked, a trifle awed. She did not expect to encounter a stern-faced official in uniform.
"What man, dearie?" he said, and instantly the child gained confidence, with that prompt abandonment to a favorable first impression which marks the exceeding wisdom of children and dogs.
She directed an encouraging sotto voce down the stairs:
"Come right 'long, Mamie."
Then she answered, clasping the hand Pyne extended to her, but eying Brand the while:
"The man who brought the milk."
She wondered why they laughed, but the lighthouse-keeper caught her up in his arms.