“No-o, sir,” sighed the little visitor.
“Your father wants something, then?” questioned the puzzled hardware dealer.
“No-o, sir.”
At that moment a more daring ray of sunlight found its way through the transom over the store door and lit up the dusky place. It fell upon the slight, black-frocked figure and, for the instant, touched the pretty head as with an aureole.
“Bless me, child!” exclaimed Mr. Stagg. “Who are you?”
The flowerlike face of the little girl quivered, the blue eyes spilled big drops over her cheeks. She approached Mr. Stagg, stooping and squinting in the office doorway, and placed a timid hand upon the broad band of black crêpe he wore on his coat sleeve.
“You’re not Hannah’s Car’lyn?” questioned the hardware dealer huskily.
“I’m Car’lyn May Cameron,” she confessed. “You’re my Uncle Joe. I’m very glad to see you, Uncle Joe, and—and I hope—you’re glad to see me—and Prince,” she finished rather falteringly.
“Bless me!” murmured the man again, leaning for support against the door frame.
Nothing so startling as this had entered Sunrise Cove’s chief “hardware emporium,” as Mr. Stagg’s standing advertisement read in the Weekly Bugle, for many and many a year.