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"He ought not to know much about trouble yet," I answered hopefully, with the consciousness of one who has fathomed all the mysteries of grief and can yet speak gayly of the forlorn background. "He doesn't know enough about the world, I'm afraid," said Mrs. Cradlebow, and her eyes, fixed on my face, seemed to me to be looking gently into my inmost heart.
"Wall, Levi told me that, and to-day, 'long about the middle o' the forenoon, my man come up to the house he's down to shore, you know, along o' Cap'n Sartell and George Olver and Lute Cradlebow and all the rest, down there a mendin' up the old schooner, 'cause Cap'n wanted Lute to see to it afore he went away.
This little phenomenon, whom you see before you, is the youngest but one in a flock of thirteen. Some of that beautiful band " here Mr. Cradlebow raised a very shaky hand for an instant to his eyes, and although a fitting occasion for sentiment, I was compelled to think of what Grandpa Keeler had said about Godfrey Cradlebow's "sprees" "some of that beautiful band rest in the graveyard, yonder.
"That Lute Cradlebow he's a handsome boy, teacher. Ah, he's a handsome one. They're a handsome family, them Cradlebows. "There's the old grannie, Aunt Sibby they call her. Lord, she's got a head on her like a picter! They're high-bred, too, I reckon. To begin with, why, Godfrey Godfrey Cradlebow that's Lute's father, teacher; he's college bred, I suppose!
I suppose there's one that larking Cradlebow who has stood the test and come out creditably, by reason of an uncommonly artistic shock of hair and a Raphaelite countenance. As for me, taken in the ordinary sense, I'm no worse than a thousand others, but I say that it was a decidedly unfortunate light to put me in! It was a decidedly unfair light!"
She wore a heavenly, trustful expression of countenance. Her lips moved as if in prayer. Aunt Sibylla Cradlebow rose in her place majestic and weird she looked, like some old Eastern prophetess, a grand forecasting in her shadowy eyes.
I thought I understood, and resolved to instruct Rebecca to forget the red-haired fisherman; to be "sensible," and "marry good, honest George Olver," who loved her so devotedly. Lute Cradlebow had come home, and was one among the many figures at this brilliant fête.
"Miss Hungerford, I beg your pardon," said the elder Cradlebow, with a distinct, refined enunciation foreign to the native element of Wallencamp, whose ordinary locution had something of a Hoosier accent "After a good deal of trouble in catching him, I have finally succeeded in bringing you in this a this little dev" he made an impressive pause, patted his fiery offspring on the head with fatherly dignity, and eyed him, at once doubtfully and reflectively.
"He expects so much, and he never looks out for himself. I wish he'd be content to go fishing with the other boys they always come back in the autumn and not want to sail so far." I was almost angry because of the embarrassment I felt under that clear glance. "Don't you think, Mrs. Cradlebow," I said nervously; "that young people are never content until they find out the world for themselves?"
Aunt Sibylla Cradlebow, the speaker, was tall and dark-eyed, with an almost superhuman litheness of body, and a weird, beautiful face. "And, oh, my dear brothers and sisters and onconvarted friends!" she continued; "how little do we realize the reskiness of our situwation here on the Cape!
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