Page:Ballinger Price--Fortune of the Indies.djvu/45

 and looked up beyond his brown young face to the sails that were to bear him to destruction. Jane thought of it sometimes as she gazed at Mrs. Titoomb's plain, strong old face, and Mrs. Titcomb would rebuke her for the gazing. She taught in a fashion not at all new-fangled, but extremely thorough. Perhaps it was partly due to Jane's schooling that she was so unlike most girls outside Resthaven—or in it, for the matter of that. But it is not of Jane, nor of Mrs. Titcomb's Select School, that we must think now. For Mark and Alan, instead of loafing home across the bridge, musing at every stone pier and staring down-harbor to the smoke-drift at sea, were running pell-mell, their caps in their tingling hands, with news that, to the Ingrams, was vastly interesting.

They tumbled in unceremoniously upon the aunts, who were mending the fire in the grate circumspectly. Mark and Alan snatched the poker and shovel from the old ladies' hands, that they might be sure to listen, and using the implements unconsciously to point their remarks they poured out their tale, both at once.