Page:Ballinger Price--Fortune of the Indies.djvu/23

 harbor mouth began punctuating the dusk with slow flashes. There was no sound at all but little cold noises of water along the piers.

Jane woke suddenly to the settling chill and the creeping darkness, and removed her elbows from the pile-head. She shook herself and ran up the hill, clattering over the cobbles of Chesley Street and bursting in precipitately at the wide, white door of the Ingram house. A savory smell of muffins made her rather glad she had remembered to come home, and she slid out of her reefer and rubbed her cold fingers. Aunt Lucia came into the hall; Aunt Ellen had taken her seat behind the steaming urn.

"My dear, do you think you should stay out quite so long? It's very cold, besides being so dark."

"I wasn't cold," Jane said, "and the dark is nice, because there are lights in it and a different sort of wind."

Miss Lucia, who could not imagine any sort of wind being pleasant, however different, said nothing, and Jane installed herself at the table with a hungry expression.

"Where are the boys?" she inquired.