It will be darker in an hour or so. But you think it's too
dark for little girls already, eh?"
She nodded. "I don't think Mamma would like me to be out when it's
so awful dark," she said.
"Hum! . . . Hum. . . . Does your mamma know where you are?"
The young lady's toe marked a circle on the shop floor.
"No-o," she confessed, "I--I guess she doesn't, not just exactly."
"I shouldn't be surprised. And so you've come back because you was
afraid, eh?"
She swallowed hard and edged a little nearer to him.
"No-o," she declared, stoutly, "I--I wasn't afraid, not very; but--
but I thought the--the swordfish was pretty heavy to carry all
alone and--and so--"
Jed laughed aloud, something that he rarely did.
"Good for you, sis!" he exclaimed. "Now you just wait until I get
my hat and we'll carry that heavy fish home together."
Miss Armstrong looked decidedly happier.
"Thank you very much," she said. "And--and, if you please, my name
is Barbara."
CHAPTER IV
The Smalley residence, where Mrs. Luretta Smalley, relict of the
late Zenas T., accommodated a few "paying guests," was nearly a
mile from the windmill shop and on the Orham "lower road." Mr.
Winslow and his new acquaintance took the short cuts, through by-
paths and across fields, and the young lady appeared to have
thoroughly recovered from her misgivings concerning the dark--in
reality it was scarcely dusk--and her doubts concerning her ability
to carry the "heavy" swordfish without help.
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