If Lucy had been my own child, she could
not have been kinder to me."
Mr. Waldeaux turned and raised his crepe-bound hat,
looking at Lucy in her soft gray gown vaguely, as he
might at a white gull dropped on the shore.
"I suppose I never shall see her again," said his mother.
"Clara tells me she is besieged by lovers. She is
going to marry a German prince, probably."
"That would be a pity," George said, with a startled
glance back at the girl.
"Good-by, my dear!" Mrs. Waldeaux leaned over the
bulwark. "She is beautiful as an angel! Good-by, Lucy!
God bless you! she sobbed, kissing her hand.
Mr. Waldeaux looked steadily at Lucy. "How clean she
is!" he said.
When the shore was gone he walked down the deck,
conscious of a sudden change in himself. He was wakening
out of an ugly dream. The sight of the healthy little
girl, with her dewy freshness and blue eyes, full of
affection and common sense, cheered and heartened him.
He did not know what was doing it, but he threw up his
head and walked vigorously. The sun shone and the cold
wind swept him out into a dim future to begin a new life.
CHAPTER XVI
George Waldeaux took his mother and boy back to the old
homestead in Delaware. They arrived at night, and early
the next morning he rowed away in his bateau to some of
his old haunts in the woods on the bay, and was seen no
more that day.
"He is inconsolable!" his mother told some of her old
neighbors who crowded to welcome her.
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