Page:Cornelia Meigs--The windy hill.djvu/90

84 He went out, this time closing the door very gently behind him. The echoes of his vague threat seemed to hang in the great room long after he was gone.

"What—what can he do?" questioned Cicely.

Her father, with a visible effort, answered cheerfully, "An angry man loves to threaten, but we have naught to fear from him. And now," he gathered the big ledger under his arm, "I must work for a little in the countingroom and then we will go home."

Cicely, left alone, went back to fetch her letters and stopped for a moment at one of the long windows to look down upon the harbor where the Huntress dipped and swayed at anchor, a stately, beautiful thing that seemed to quiver with life as she rocked in the choppy seas, her shimmering reflection, beginning to be colored by the sunset, rocking and dancing with her.

"Oh, I must draw it," cried Cicely, catching up a sheet of fresh paper. "If only the light holds and the ship does not swing round with the tide!"

The minutes passed while she worked eagerly, but finally was forced to lay down her pencil, unable to see more in the dusk. The door flew open and some one came in with the impulsive rush that belonged only to her brother Alan.

"What, Cicely, still here and trying to draw in the dark? Let me see what you have done," he exclaimed. He lit a candle and examined the paper.