"It's the best part of all the welcome, I declare it is!" said he,
standing in the doorway and enjoying the sight before him a moment.
"Oh, Andrew," cried the little body with a sob, but crouching farther away
into the corner, "it was so splendid of you!"
"What was so splendid of me?" said he, still in the doorway, tall and
erect in the sunshine that lay around him, and that glanced along his red
shirt and his bronzed cheek to light a flame in the black eyes that
surveyed her.
"Standing by him so," she sobbed--"standing by the captain when the others
left--bringing home the ship!"
"It's not a ship--it's a brig," said Andrew, possibly too conscious of his
merit to listen to the praise of it. "Well, is this all? Ain't you going
to shake hands with me? Ain't you glad to see me?"
"Oh, Andrew! So glad!" and she turned and let him see the blushing, rosy
face one moment, the large, dark, liquid eyes, the tangled, tawny curls;
and then overcome once more, as a sudden shower overcomes the landscape,
the lips quivered again, the long-lashed eyelids fell, and the face was
hidden in another storm of tears. And then, perhaps because he was a
sailor, and perhaps because he was a man, his arms were round her and he
was kissing off those tears, and the little happy body was clinging to him
and trembling with excitement and with joy like a leaf in the wind.
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