The Tides of Barnegat | Page 8

is very bad; and I don't blame him for
throwing anything he could lay his hands on at this little wretch of
Martha's. We all played cards up in our rooms at school. Miss Sarah
never knew anything about it--she thought we were in bed, and it was
just lovely to fool her. And what does the immaculate Dr. John
Cavendish look like? Has he changed any?" she added with a laugh.
"No," answered Jane simply.
"Does he come often?" She had turned her head now and was looking
from under her lids at Martha. "Just as he used to and sit around, or has
he--" Here she lifted her eyebrows in inquiry, and a laugh bubbled out
from between her lips.
"Yes, that's just what he does do," cried Martha in a triumphant tone;
"every minute he kin git. And he can't come too often to suit me. I jest
love him, and I'm not the only one, neither, darlin'," she added with a
nod of her head toward Jane.

"And Barton Holt as well?" persisted Lucy. "Why, sister, I didn't
suppose there would be a man for me to look at when I came home, and
you've got two already! Which one are you going to take?" Here her
rosy face was drawn into solemn lines.
Jane colored. "You've got to be a great tease, Lucy," she answered as
she leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. "I'm not in the back of the
doctor's head, nor he in mine--he's too busy nursing the sick--and Bart's
a boy!"
"Why, he's twenty-five years old, isn't he?" exclaimed Lucy in some
surprise.
"Twenty-five years young, dearie--there's a difference, you know.
That's why I do what I can to help him. If he'd had the right influences
in his life and could be thrown a little more with nice women it would
help make him a better man. Be very good to him, please, even if you
do find him a little rough." They had mounted the steps of the porch
and were now entering the wide colonial hall--a bare white hall, with a
staircase protected by spindling mahogany banisters and a handrail.
Jane passed into the library and seated herself at her desk. Lucy ran on
upstairs, followed by Martha to help unpack her boxes and trunks.
When they reached the room in which Martha had nursed her for so
many years--the little crib still occupied one corner--the old woman
took the wide hat from the girl's head and looked long and searchingly
into her eyes.
"Let me look at ye, my baby," she said, as she pushed Lucy's hair back
from her forehead; "same blue eyes, darlin', same pretty mouth I kissed
so often, same little dimples ye had when ye lay in my arms, but ye've
changed--how I can't tell. Somehow, the face is different."
Her hands now swept over the full rounded shoulders and plump arms
of the beautiful girl, and over the full hips.
"The doctor's right, child," she said with a sigh, stepping back a pace
and looking her over critically; "my baby's gone--you've filled out to be

a woman."
CHAPTER II

SPRING BLOSSOMS
For days the neighbors in and about the village of Warehold had been
looking forward to Lucy's home- coming as one of the important
epochs in the history of the Manor House, quite as they would have
done had Lucy been a boy and the expected function one given in
honor of the youthful heir's majority. Most of them had known the
father and mother of these girls, and all of them loved Jane, the gentle
mistress of the home--a type of woman eminently qualified to maintain
its prestige.
It had been a great house in its day. Built in early Revolutionary times
by Archibald Cobden, who had thrown up his office under the Crown
and openly espoused the cause of the colonists, it had often been the
scene of many of the festivities and social events following the
conclusion of peace and for many years thereafter: the rooms were still
pointed out in which Washington and Lafayette had slept, as well as the
small alcove where the dashing Bart de Klyn passed the night whenever
he drove over in his coach with outriders from Bow Hill to Barnegat
and the sea.
With the death of Colonel Creighton Cobden, who held a commission
in the War of 1812, all this magnificence of living had changed, and
when Morton Cobden, the father of Jane and Lucy, inherited the estate,
but little was left except the Manor House, greatly out of repair, and
some invested property which brought in but a modest income. On his
death-bed Morton Cobden's last words were a prayer to Jane, then
eighteen, that she would watch over and