Page:Saxe Holm's Stories, Series Two.djvu/333

Rh could look so handsome, blowing about in such a gale. Tilly saw a stranger walking up to the light-house door; but she did not pause in her work. Strangers came every day. Joe's left side was farthest away from Tilly. She did not see the loose, hanging sleeve; and the blue of the army coat did not attract her notice, so she went on with her clothes without giving a second thought to the man who had disappeared in the big door of the light-house. Somebody to see her father, no doubt, or to see the light.

When Tilly went into the kitchen and saw the stranger sitting by the table talking familiarly with her mother, she was somewhat surprised, but was passing through the room with her big clothes-basket, when her mother, with an air of unconcealable triumph, said:—

"Tilly, you could n't guess who this is."

Tilly halted, basket in hand, and turned her scarlet cheeks and bright brown eyes full toward Joe.

"No,—I have n't the least idea," she said, and as she said it she looked so pretty, that Joe, absurd as it might seem, fell in love with her on the spot.

The words "I have n't the least idea," had hardly left her lips, when her eyes fell on the empty sleeve; and, although in no letter had it ever been said that Joe had lost an arm, this sight suggested him to her mind. "Why, it isn t Mr. Hale, is it?" she said, turning still redder.