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The vagueness was gone as suddenly as it had come. "I had to, Nat," Hannah said regretfully. "They were getting into the cornfield. They brought a good price—two hanks of wool for a new cape."

Nat leaned back now and surveyed Kit with frank interest. She had forgotten the intense blue of his eyes, like the sea itself.

"Tell me," he asked her, "how did they ever let you find your way to Hannah?"

Kit hesitated, and Hannah chuckled. "How did thee find a way here?" she demanded of him. "'Tis a strange thing, that the only friends I have I found in the same way, lying flat in the meadows, crying as though their hearts would break."

The two young people stared at each other. "You?" breathed Kit incredulously.

Nat laughed. "I'll have you know that I was only eight years old," he explained.

"Were you running away?"

"I certainly was. We were on the way down river, and my father had just told me he was leaving me at Saybrook to spend the winter with my grandmother and go to school. It seemed like the end of the world. I had never lived anywhere but the Dolphin, and it had never occurred to me that anyone but my father would teach me. I'd never in my life seen anything like the meadows. They went on and on, and all at once 1 was hungry and thoroughly lost and scared. Hannah found me and brought me here and washed the scratches on my legs. She even gave me a kitten to take back with me."

"A little gray tiger," Hannah remembered.

"That cat was our lucky piece for six years. Not one of the men would have weighed anchor without her."

Kit was entranced. "I can just see you," she laughed. "Did Hannah give you blueberry cake, too?"

"Right here at the table," nodded Hannah. "I'd forgotten how a little boy could eat."

Nat reached again to cover her hand with his own. "Hannah's magic cure for every ill," he teased. "Blueberry cake and a kitten."

"Did you go back to school?" questioned Kit.

"Yes. Hannah walked back to the ship with me, and somehow I felt bold as a lion. I didn't even mind the thrashing that was waiting for me."

"I know," said Kit, remembering the walk up to Mr. Kimberley's door.

"And now thee can both have supper with me again," said Hannah, delighted as a child at the prospect of a party. But Kit jumped to her feet with a guilty glance at the sun.

"Oh, dear," she exclaimed. "I didn't realize it was time for supper."

Hannah smiled up at her. "God go with thee, child," she said softly. She did not need to say more. They both knew that Kit would come back.

Nat followed her to the door. "You didn't say what you were running away from," he reminded her. "Has it gone so badly here in Wethersfield?"

She might have told him, but looking up she caught a hint of "I told you so" in those blue eyes that silenced her. Was Nat laughing at her for behaving like an eight-year-old? Her head went up.

"Certainly not," she said with dignity. "My aunt and uncle have been very kind."

"And you've managed to stay out of the water?"

That superior tone of his! "As a matter of fact," she told him haughtily, "I am a teacher in the dame school."

Nat swept her a bow. "Fancy that!" he said. "A schoolmistress!" Instantly she wished she had not said it.

But as Nat followed her into the road, his mocking tone changed. "Whatever it was," he said seriously, "I'm glad you ran to Hannah. She needs you. Keep an eye on her, won't you?"

What a contradictory person he was, she thought, hurrying along South Road. Always putting her at a disadvantage somehow, and yet, now and then, surprising her, letting her peek through a door that always seemed to slam shut again before she could actually see inside. She would never know what to expect next from him.

CHAPTER 11

MIDSUMMER HEAT lay heavily upon the Connecticut Valley. The bare feet of the children were covered with fine dry dust from the road. Inside the kitchen the small bodies squirmed on the hard benches, and eyes strayed from the primers to gaze through the door at the forbidden sunshine. Kit felt as restless as her pupils.

If only I