John Everett answered the carping question in Jane's eyes with gay composure. "I promised Buster yesterday that I would come home early and join him at the beach," he said coolly. "I want to have a hand in digging that hole, myself," he added, rescuing the abandoned shovel from a sandy entombment. Jane surveyed him gravely. "If you are going to be here all the afternoon," she said, "perhaps you will not mind if I go home. There are windows to clean, and I am sure Mrs. Belknap would not mind my leaving Master Buster in your care, sir." His crestfallen face afforded the girl a transient amusement as she walked across the sand in quest of her hat. But Fate, in the small person of the infant, happily intervened as she was firmly inserting her hat pins and otherwise preening herself for hasty flight. "Where 'oo doin', Jane?" he demanded imperiously. "I am going home," replied Jane, with a conciliatory smile. "Mr. Everett will stay with you, dear." "No!" murmured the sagacious infant, laying hold of the girl's gown with a determined hand. "N-o-o!" The last word ended in a loud wail of protest. Jane flushed uncomfortably under John Everett's observant eyes, as she stooped to gently disengage herself. "I must go, dear," she repeated. "I have some work to do at home." The child responded by throwing both chubby arms about her neck and wailing discordantly in her ear. "Come, come, Buster!" exclaimed his uncle wrathfully; "you can stop that howling. Jane won't leave you. I'll take myself off instead, as I see I am decidedly out of it." The small boy instantly relaxed his hold upon the girl and flew to his uncle. "No-o!" he shouted. "I want my Jane, an'—an' I want 'oo, "That's all right, young fellow, and a proper sentiment too," murmured John Everett. Then he cast a pleading look at Jane. "Why persist in spoiling a good time?" he asked. "I'll play in the sand like a good boy, and I promise you I won't teach Buster any bad words, nor throw wet sand on his clean frock." Jane's pretty face was a study. "Very well, sir," she said coldly. "It is not for me to say, I suppose." Then she sat down at a safe distance from the hole in the sand—in which the small diplomat, satisfied with the result of his coup, immediately resumed operations—and fixed her eyes on the sail-haunted horizon. All the sense of happy freedom which the wind had brought her from across the sea had suddenly "I hate him!" she told herself passionately. "If he knew who I was he would not dare call me 'Jane,' and smile at me in that insufferably familiar way. It is only because I am a servant. Oh, I hate him!" Her little hands clenched themselves till the nails almost pierced the tender palms, whereon divers hardened spots told of unaccustomed toil. It was not an auspicious moment for John Everett to approach and utter a commonplace remark about a passing steamer. Nevertheless he did it, being anxious in his blundering masculine way to cheer this forlorn little exile, who he felt sure was in dire need of human sympathy. Jane made no sort of reply, and after a doubtful pause he ventured to seat himself at her side. "That white tower on the farther side of the bay is one of the features of 'Dreamland,'" he observed. "At night one can see Still no answer. He studied the girl's delicate profile in silence for a minute. "Wouldn't you like to see it sometime, Jane?" he asked. She turned upon him suddenly. "How—how dare you—call me 'Jane,' and—and— Oh, I hate you!" Her kindling eyes scorched him for an instant, then before he could collect his scattered senses she burst into wild sobbing. "You wouldn't dare treat me so if I was at—at home," she went on between her sobs; "but you think because I am all alone here and—and working for wages that you—can amuse yourself with me. Oh, I wish you would go away and never speak to me again!" His face had paled slowly. "I don't even know your name," he said quietly. "But I assure you, Miss—Jane, it has been very far from my mind to annoy you, or to——" He stopped short and looked at her fixedly. "I must put myself right with you, Jane," he said at last. "You must listen to me." Her low weeping suddenly ceased, and she lifted her proud little face all wet with angry tears to his. "I will listen," she said haughtily. "I am afraid I don't altogether understand what you mean to accuse me of," he said, choosing his words carefully; "but I will tell you just why I have tried to make friends with you. I will admit that men in my station do not as a rule make friends with servant maids." He said this firmly and watched her wince under the words. "But, Jane, you are not at all like an ordinary servant. I saw that the first time I met you. I fancied that you had, somehow, stumbled out of your right place in the world, and I thought—very foolishly, no doubt—that I might help you to get back to it." Jane's eyes kindled. "I can help myself to get back to it," she murmured, "and I will!" "That is why I wished to help you," he went on, without paying heed to her interruption, "and I will confess to you that I came down here this afternoon on purpose to have a talk with you. I meant—" he paused to search her "Oh, no—no!" she protested. "Do you mean to remain in America, then?" he asked. "Are you satisfied with being a domestic servant?" "No," she said doggedly. "I am going back when—when I have earned the money for my passage. I ought never to have come," she added bitterly. "I ought to have endured the ills I knew." "Will you tell me what ills you were enduring in England?" he asked. "I—I was living with relatives," she faltered, "and——" "Were they unkind to you?" "They didn't mean to be," acknowledged Jane. "I can see that now. But I fancied—I thought I should be happier if I were independent. So I——" "You fell into trouble as soon as you stepped out of the safe shelter of your home," he finished for her. "You are right in thinking that She looked up into the strong, kind face he bent toward her. "I—thank you," she said slowly, "and I beg your pardon, too. I see now that you are—that you meant to be my friend." "And you will accept my friendship?" he asked eagerly. "You will allow me to help you to return to England?" She shook her head. "I could have borrowed the money from Bertha Forbes, if I had chosen to do it," she said. "She wanted to send me back at once. But"—with an obstinate tightening of her pretty lips—"I thought since I had gotten myself into this absurd plight by my own foolishness I ought to get myself out of it. And Her eyes wandered away to the dim blue horizon which lay beyond "The Hook," and he saw her sensitive mouth quiver. "Do you know you're showing a whole lot of splendid grit," he murmured appreciatively. "I know just how you feel." "Now that I have told you all this," she went on hurriedly, her eyes returning from their wistful excursion seaward, "you will understand why I do not—why I cannot—" she blushed and faltered into silence. "You really haven't told me very much after all," he said gravely. "Don't you think between friends, now, that——" "But we are not friends," she interrupted him hastily. "That is just what I wished to say. I have explained to you that I have friends in England, and I have Miss Forbes besides. So there is no reason at all why you should give "O Jane! why?" he urged anxiously. She cast an impatient glance at him. "You are so—stupid," she murmured resentfully. "But then you are an American, and I suppose you cannot help it." He grimaced ruefully at this British taunt. "I fear I shall have to allow the damaging fact of my nationality," he said; "but I fail to understand how it is going to stand in the way of my thinking of you at intervals. If you knew more about Americans, Jane, you would see that it is mainly on that account I am bound to do it." "You'll be obliged to keep your thoughts to yourself then," she told him, "for as long as I am in Mrs. Belknap's employ I am, undeniably, her servant and, hence, nothing to you. Do you understand? Because if you do not, I shall be obliged to find another situation at once." "Oh, no; don't do that!" he protested. Jane arose. "It is quite time to be going home," she said coldly. "I must ask you not to speak to me again, Mr. Everett, and please come home on another car." "But sometime, Jane, after this farce is played to its finis, don't you think——" She turned her back upon him deliberately and walked away toward the trolley station, leading Master Belknap by the hand, meek and unresisting. During all this time the little boy had been contentedly laboring in the removal of sand from a hole of wide dimensions; his eyes were heavy with fatigue when the girl set him gently in his place on the homeward bound car. "I yuve 'oo, Jane," he murmured sweetly, laying his curly head in her lap. "I'm doin' to build 'oo a—dreat, big house!" Five minutes later he was soundly asleep, and Jane, who had tried in vain to awaken him, was forced to lift his limp weight in her slender arms when the car finally stopped at her destination. "Give the boy to me, Jane," said an authoritative voice at her side. She looked up in real vexation. "I thought," she said reproachfully, "that you promised——" "I promised not to bother you, Jane; but I didn't say I would never offer to help you again. Did you suppose for an instant that I would allow you to carry that boy up this hill?" Jane crossed the street without a word, and speeding across lots, by way of a daisied meadow, reached the house first. She was met at the door by her mistress. "Why, Jane, where is Buster?" inquired Mrs. Belknap anxiously. "Master Buster went to sleep on the way home, ma'am," explained Jane, blushing guiltily, "Oh!" said Mr. Everett's sister, rather blankly. |