At last her flustered mishaps were over, and Constance was neat and trim, ready to go down to the beach.
"Damaris, little sister, come up and let me see that none of the dinner treacle is on the outside of your small mouth," Constance called gaily down the stairs.
Damaris appeared, came half way, and stopped forlornly.
"Mother says she will take me, Constance," the child said, mournfully. "She says that you will greet Giles with warm welcome, and that I must not help in it, for that Giles is wicked, and must be frowned upon. Is Giles wicked, Constance? He is good to me; I love him, not so much as you, but I do love Giles. Must I not be glad when he comes, Sister?"
"Oh, Damaris, darling, your kind little heart tells you that you would want a welcome yourself if you were returning after an absence! And we know that the father of that bad son in the Gospel went out to meet him, and fell on his neck! But I must not teach you against your mother's teaching! You know, little lass, whether or not I think our big brother bad!" said poor Constance. "Where is your mother?"
"She hath gone to fetch Oceanus back; he crawled out of the open door and went as fast as a spider down the street, crawling, Constance! He looked so funny!" and Damaris laughed.
Constance laughed too, and cried gaily, with one of her sudden changes from sober to gay: "And so Oceanus is beginning to run off, too! What a time we shall have, Damaris, with our big brother marching away, and our baby brother crawling away, both of them caring not a button whether we are frightened about them, or not!"
She flitted down the stairs with her lightness of movement that gave her the effect of a half-flight, caught Damaris to her and kissed her soundly, and set her down just in time to escape rebuke for her demonstrativeness from Dame Eliza, who returned with her face reddened, and Oceanus kicking under one arm, hung like a sack below it, and screaming with baffled rage and the desire of adventure. On the beach nearly everyone of the small community was gathered to see the arrival.
Constance stole up behind Priscilla Alden, and touched her shoulder.
"You are not the only happy girl here to-day, my bonny bride," she said.