Rilla of the Lighthouse. North Grace May

heard his heavy steps climbing the spiral stairs. Fainter and fainter they grew, and then, a moment later, just as the first stars glimmered through the dusk, the great light flashed over the sea and began slowly turning, for the lighthouse was on an island one mile from shore, and the waters all about it were illumined.

      For a moment Rilla saw a fishing boat that was nearly becalmed and would have trouble reaching port that night.

      “It’s ol’ Cap’n Barney, like’s not. He’s allays late gettin’ in.”

      The girl rose and went indoors. Shags, who had been lying silently at her feet, accompanied her. “Good-night, Grand-dad,” she said, standing on tiptoe to kiss the old man, who stood erect in spite of his many years.

      Then almost shyly she added: “Grand-dad, when I come sixteen yer goin’ to tell me all about it, like yo’ promised, aren’t yo’, Grand-dad?”

      A grunt, which could hardly be interpreted in the affirmative, was the only reply, and yet neither had it been negative.

      Kissing him again, Rilla went to her snug little room over the kitchen, and Shags followed, for he always slept just outside her closed door.

      Rilla did not light the kerosene lamp that stood on the small table. The moon was rising and she liked its light best. For a moment she stood at the open window, facing the town, which in the fall and winter was so dark and quiet in the evening, but in summer, when the city people were in their cabins on the point, it was pulsing with life, color and music. Rilla never visited the town in summer. She was then practically a prisoner on the small rocky island. For a long time she stood watching the waves that lifted silvery crests in the moonlight. “I wonder who my dad was,” she thought, as she had many times before. “I wonder why he never came for me, after my girl-mother died.” Forgotten was the box in Treasure Cave.

      Many had been the moods of Rilla that day, but when she had undressed in the moonlight she knelt, not by the bedside, but facing the window. Looking up toward the peaceful, starry sky, she whispered softly, “God in Heaven, bless my grand-dad, and – and my father – who never came for me. Amen.”

      Soon she was asleep, little dreaming that the next day was to bring into her hitherto quiet and uneventful life her first real adventure.

      CHAPTER II.

      A GIFT FROM THE SEA

      Sunrise and the memory of the treasure box came at the same time. Rilla was dressed in a twinkling. She did not even stop to peer into the bit of broken mirror which Mrs. Sol Dexter had given her, hoping that with it would go the proverbial seven years of bad luck. Mrs. Sol Dexter kept the general store and postoffice in the fishing village of Tunkett.

      She was absolutely honest, was Mrs. Sol, but not inclined to be generous. If the scales tipped one cranberry too many, out came that cranberry! She had never before been known to give anything away, but something which might bring bad luck she had been willing to part with.

      It had been a happy day for Rilla, that one, when for the first time she had acquired a real mirror.

      It was, of course, after the summer season, or she would not have been in town at all. And on that same day her grand-dad had given her a whole quarter to spend just as she wished and she had asked Mrs. Sol Dexter for two hair ribbons, one to match the sunrise and one like the green in the hollow of a wave just before it turns over when the sun is shining on it.

      “Queerest gal, that!” Mrs. Dexter confided to her husband, Cap’n Sol, the next time he came in from one of his sea “v’yages.”

      “She must get all them sunset notions from her pa’s side. I recollect hearin’ he was an artist fellow.”

      “Wall,” the good-natured man had replied, “if that pore gal gets any comfort out’n ’em, I’m sure sartin glad. She’s little more’n a prisoner most o’ the year over thar on Windy Island. Jest because her ma ran off ’n’ married up wi’ that city feller, ol’ Ezry Bassett is tarnal sartin the same thing’ll happen to Rilly. But I cal’late them thar city fellars, on the whole, ain’t hankerin’ to splice up with lighthouse keepers’ gals nor grand-gals, neither.”

      When Rilla had reached home that never-to-be-forgotten day when she had purchased something all by herself and for the very first time, she had slipped up to her room with the broken mirror and she had tied on both of the new hair ribbons, one red and one green. They weren’t the shades that she had really wanted, but they were the prettiest that Mrs. Sol Dexter had in stock. Then she gazed long at her reflection in the mirror. Once – just once – her grand-dad had told her that she was the “splittin’ image” of her mother, who had died when she was only seventeen.

      “I’ve allays wished as I had a photygraf of her,” Rilla had thought. “Now I can be lookin’ in the mirror an’ pretendin’ it’s a picture of my mother, only she’d be lots sweeter lookin’. Mrs. Sol Dexter said as how the summer folks called her beautiful.”

      There was always a wistful, yearning expression in the hazel eyes of the girl when she thought of her mother.

      But all this had happened the autumn before. Bad luck had not befallen Rilla – she didn’t even know that a broken mirror was supposed to bring bad luck – and that is probably why it had not done so; for we get, in this world, what we expect very often, and this little lass, who lived so close to nature, was always expecting something wonderful to happen and she found real joy in the simplest things.

      The dog, lying just outside the door, lifted a listening ear the moment his little mistress had stepped out of bed and he was eagerly waiting when she softly opened the door.

      “Sh! Shagsie, ol’ dog, don’ be barkin’,” the girl cautioned. “Grand-dad’s put the light out an’ he’s gone back to his bunk for ’nother forty winks. You’n I’ll have time to see what’s in the box. Sh-h! Soft now!”

      The dog’s intelligent brown eyes were watching the face of his mistress and he seemed to understand that he must be very quiet. If Muriel tiptoed as she went down the curving flight of steps to the kitchen, so too did Shags. As she passed the door of her grand-dad’s bedroom she could hear his even breathing.

      It was not unusual for Rilla and Shags to climb to the top of the crags to watch the sunrise, and so, even if her grandfather had awakened, he would have thought nothing of it, but it was not to the highest point of the cliff that the girl went.

      Instead, she clambered down what appeared to be a perilous descent, but both she and the dog were as sure-footed as mountain goats, and they were soon standing on the out-jutting ledge in front of a small opening which was the entrance to her Treasure Cave.

      Eager as the girl was to learn the secret that the box contained, she did not go in at once, but paused, turning toward the sea. The waves, lifting snowy crests, caught the dawning glory of the sky. Impulsively she stretched her arms out to the sun.

      There was something sacred to this untaught girl about the rebirth of each day, and the glory of the sky and sea was reflected in her radiant upturned face. Only for a brief while did the pageantry last, and the world – Rilla’s world, all that she knew – was again attired in its everyday garb, sky-blue, sea-green, rock-grey, while over all was the shining sun-gold.

      Stooping, for the cave door was too small to be entered by so tall a girl were she standing erect, Rilla disappeared from the ledge and Shags followed her. The cave within was larger than one might suppose, and was lighted by wide crevices here and there in its wall of rocks through which rays of sunlight slanted. The continuous roar of the surf, crashing on the rocks below, was somewhat dulled.

      Rilla leaped forward with a little cry of joy.

      “Shags,” she called gleefully, “it’s still here! ’Twa’n’t a dream-box arter all. I sort o’ got to thinkin’ in the night it might be.” She clapped her hands, for there were moments when Rilla was a very little girl at heart, much younger than her years, and yet at other times, when she was comforting her old grand-dad and soothing away his imaginary fears, she was far older than fifteen.

      Shags