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Title: The Aristocratic Miss Brewster (1927)
Author: Joseph C. Lincoln
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eBook No.:  0200531.txt
Language:   English
Date first posted: August 2002
Date most recently updated: August 2002

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Title:      The Aristocratic Miss Brewster
Author:     Joseph C. Lincoln








CHAPTER I


All day it had rained and all day the wind had blown savagely from
the northeast.  The last yellow, desperately clinging leaf had been
whipped from the silver-leaf poplar by the front gate and the two
tall elms in the yard were naked skeletons of limbs and twigs,
which rasped and scraped against each other as the gusts twisted
them.  All day the gutters had roared and the windowpanes streamed.
Now, at five o'clock of this afternoon in November, 1904, the rain
had ceased, but the wind blew almost as hard as ever.

Mary Brewster stood by the west window of the sitting room looking
out.  It was a sodden, dreary scene upon which she looked.  The old
house, square, white, green-shuttered and red-chimneyed, stood at
the top of a little hill.  From its paneled and fan-lighted front
door the red brick walk, bordered by the inevitable box hedges,
sloped down to the just as inevitable white fence and gate which
separated the Brewster property from the main road of Wapatomac.
Along that road the houses were scattered, shapeless, gloomy
blotches against the slaty sky of that dark afternoon, with but the
infrequent gleam of a kitchen lamp as evidence that they were
inhabited.  Not a soul was in sight on the puddle-sprinkled road or
sidewalks.  The only sounds were the snarling of the wind, the drip
from the eaves, or the occasional rattle of a falling branch.  A
cold, wet, miserable, lonely, depressing outlook.  Mary Brewster
pulled down the window shade and turned her back upon it.  Her
spirits needed no external weight to force them lower.  They were
depressed sufficiently as it was.

She lighted the hanging lamp above the black walnut center table
and sat down in the black walnut rocker.  From between the leaves
of a book upon that table she took an envelope which bore in its
upper left-hand corner the name and address of a Boston firm of
stockbrokers.  From this envelope she drew a letter.  She did not
read it immediately, however.  Instead she sat with the letter in
her lap, looking absently across the room at the portrait of great-
grandfather Captain Benjamin Brewster, which hung over the mantel.
From its frame the portrait frowned back at her with a frozen, if
slightly cross-eyed, stare, the uncompromising, disapproving stare
which, when she was a little girl, made her hate it.  It had hung
just in that spot, frowning at her in exactly that same way, ever
since she could remember.  She looked about the room.  That room,
and practically everything in it, were as they always had been
during her lifetime.  They were older, that was all, and they
looked it.  She, too, was growing old; thirty-five years was her
age, according to the entry in the big Bible on the parlor table.
Just now she felt at least seventy.

She had been born in that house.  Her father was born in it; and
her father's father.  HIS father was the Captain Benjamin Brewster
of the portrait.  He it was who, in 1790, built the home in which a
Brewster had lived ever since; in which she--one of the two members
of the family left alive--was living now.  There had been a
Benjamin Brewster in Wapatomac since 1710.  There was none there
now, but that was because her half brother Benjamin, ten years
older than she, had gone out West when he was a young man and was
living there yet.  At least she supposed he was; she had not heard
from him since her mother's death.  The Brewsters were the flower
of Wapatomac's aristocracy and Wapatomac prided itself upon being
an aristocratic town.  True, of later years, as the arrogant old
sea captains and well-to-do shipowners died and their descendants
moved to the cities, so many of the fine old houses were closed
during the winter and opened only for a short summer season; but
nevertheless Wapatomac was still irreverently termed "Snob Town" by
the inhabitants of Wellmouth and Harniss and other communities less
regardful of social distinctions.

The old Brewster house was the purest of "pure Colonial."  So were
all the Brewsters who had lived in it.  She, Mary Brewster, was pure
Colonial.  Just now she devoutly wished she were not.  To be the
flower of an aristocracy which was slowly but surely going to seed
had distinct disadvantages.  She was--for she and her half brother
did not even correspond--alone in the world.  She was thirty-five,
single, and, even had there been no other complications--which there
most emphatically were--the brightest prospect to which she might
reasonably look forward was a life spent in that house, as one more
forlorn item in Wapatomac's collection of "old maid" antiques.

Azure Crisp entered the sitting room.  Mrs. Crisp was another
fixture in that house.  Like the portrait of great-grandfather
Brewster, Mary could remember her as long as she could remember
anything.  Azure had not been born a pure Colonial, but years of
association with the genuine article had embellished her hit-or-
miss architecture with aristocratic trimmings.  She was going out
that evening, to a supper and meeting of the Ladies of Honor Lodge
in its rooms over Gallup's store.  Consequently she was arrayed in
her purple silk and wore her gold breastpin and jet earrings--also
her hair.  During morning hours, when at work about the house,
Azure's hair was thin, gray, and twisted into a knob at the back of
her head.  Evenings or Sundays or on special occasions like the
present it was thick, elaborately "frizzed," and of ebon blackness.
She bustled into the sitting room and sat down with emphasis upon
the haircloth sofa.

"There!" she exclaimed with a sigh of relief.  "I believe I'm
ready, finally.  Such a time as I've had this afternoon!  Glory's
land!  I set down to do a little sewin'.  I was cal'latin' to see
if I couldn't fix up that gray dress of yours, the one you wore to
meetin' Sunday.  Now of course--"

Miss Brewster interrupted.  "Azure," she said, a little sharply, "I
have told you that I would attend to that dress myself.  I know it
is shabby."

Mrs. Crisp's back straightened.

"_I_ never said 'twas shabby," she declared, with dignity.  "And if
anybody else said it they wouldn't but once, while I was around.
When a Brewster gets to wearin' shabby clothes then things in this
town WILL have come pretty nigh to the finish, I guess.  I said it
needed a little fixin', that's all.  The neck and where the cuffs
are let in--and here and there up and around.  I saw a real lovely
pattern in the Bazar last week and I--"

Once more Mary cut in on the flow of speech.  "Azure," she said,
firmly.  "I don't want you to touch that dress.  Put it back in the
closet with the others until I see fit to attend to it, myself.
Now please."

Azure's gold breastpin quivered with the stir of emotion beneath
it.

"The others!" she repeated, tartly.  "What others?  There's hardly
a dress in that closet that isn't as much as five year old.  What
your mother would say if she could see 'em I don't know.  She
prided herself on havin' you dress accordin' to your station, and
always did.  The very last words--that is, almost about the last
she said to me--on her deathbed, 'twas--says she to me:  'Azure,'
she says, 'you'll look after my poor girl, won't you?'  Says I to
her, 'Annabelle,' I says, '"This world is all a fleetin' show, for
man's profusion given,"' and woman's, too, I guess, but--Eh?  What
was you goin' to say?"

Mary was smiling faintly.  "I was wondering why you said that," she
explained, and added, hastily:  "Not that it matters."

"That?  What?  Oh, about man's profusion and the rest of it?  Well,
I'd been readin' some lovely poetry in a book I got out of the
library.  Thomas Moore's poems 'twas.  You know how poetry gets
aholt of me sometimes.  I said it 'cause my head was full of it and
it fitted, that's why. . . .  Mary Brewster, why don't you march
yourself right straight down to Emma Holway's and have some new
dresses made?  I do wish you cared more about such things."

Mary's smile faded.  "I care about them, Azure," she said, quietly.
"And I shall have the dresses made when I can--when I get around to
it. . . .  You'll be late at your lodge meeting, won't you?"

"No.  Or if I am it won't make much difference.  They never do
anything the first half hour but sit and chirp and chipper all at
the same time, like a passel of swallows strung along a telegraph
wire.  Mary, now that I'm talkin' to you I might as well cruise
right ahead and say what's on my mind.  Have you told Frank Simmons
to come here and do the carpenterin', same as you said you would?
He ain't come, anyway.  And every time it rains, same as it did
last night and to-day, there's a new set of leaks up garret.  I've
been droppin' my sewin' and runnin' 'round settin' pans and kettles
under them leaks till it seems as if I should die.  It ain't a
question of patchin' any more.  The whole all roof ought to be
shingled."

"I know it, Azure."

"Yes.  Well, that's only the beginnin'.  There's four more pickets
blowed off the front fence."

"Really?  Oh dear!  I'm sorry."

"Yes, there is.  And if the henhouse isn't whitewashed pretty soon
the hens won't be able to find it on a dark day."

Mary sighed.  "I suppose _I_ could whitewash that henhouse," she
observed.  "I like to paint, you know."

Mrs. Crisp was horrified.  "My glory's land!" she exclaimed.  "YOU--
a Brewster--startin' in to whitewash a henhouse!  Oh, now, Mary,
DON'T set there and make fun.  YOU know the shinglin' and
whitewashin' and all the rest ought to be done, just same as I know
it.  Now don't you?"

"Yes," wearily.  "Yes, Azure, I know it well enough."

"Then why don't you see to it?  'Tain't as if you couldn't afford
it.  You've got money enough to do anything."

"Have I?"

"HAVE you?  Why, how you talk!  What ails you this afternoon--yes,
and all day yesterday, too?  You've been mopin' around like--like
Galahad after he ate that last rat he caught out in the barn.  Rats
always make him sick; but he's possessed to eat 'em just the same.
I give that cat dinner enough to--to--well, so's he's so fat he can
hardly waddle and yet, this very day, he waddled straight out in
the rain and came back with a great big rat in his mouth.  Lugged
it into my kitchen, too, and I never noticed it till I was hurryin'
over to the sink with a kettle full of bilin' water in my hand.
Then I pretty nigh scalded myself to death and him, too.  I
screeched right out, and he yowled and the kettle lid went a-flyin'
and--Well, there!  I must go, I suppose, and I haven't said half I
meant to.  Mary, you will see about gettin' those new dresses and
about the carpenterin' and all the rest of it?  You won't just set
right down and forget, will you?"

Miss Brewster drew a long breath.  "I won't forget, Azure," she
announced.  "I promise you that."

"I hope you mean it; but you're SO absent-minded lately.  This
family's got a position to keep up in the town and there's only you
and me left to keep it up."

"All right, all right, Azure.  Good night.  Have a good time."

"I'll have as good a one as I can.  If they'd only talk about
somethin' worth while down at that lodge I'd have a better.  _I_
suggested takin' up Shakespeare and talkin' about his writin's;
either him or Brownin' or somebody.  Ever since that Boston woman
gave that elocution readin' from Brownin' down to the First Church
vestry I've just been brimmin' full of him, as you might say.  I
got his poems out of the library and I read 'em and read 'em.  So I
says:  'Why not discuss Brownin' at OUR meetin's?'  But that
Marietta Beasley woman--you know what SHE is--she spoke up and
says:  'Maybe YOU know what Brownin's all about, but I declare _I_
don't.'  'Well,' says I, 'maybe I don't, either, but what of it?
Any numbskull can talk about somethin' they know all about.'  Well,
there now; let me see.  Your supper's all laid out on the dinin'-
room table, Mary, and the teapot's on the back of the stove. . . .
I hope you won't be lonesome.  I hate to leave you alone."

"I shall be all right.  I expect a caller pretty soon.  Captain
Cummings is coming to see me, or he sent word he would."

Azure was at the door, on her way to the hall closet where she kept
her bonnet and cape.  Now she turned.  "Who?" she asked, in
surprise.  "Dave Cummings?  Comin' here to see you?  What for?"

"I asked him to come.  Something about one of my investments."

"Oh! . . .  Humph! . . .  Well, Dave Cummings is a smart business
man, I suppose likely.  Though why they ever made him president of
the Wapatomac bank is more than I can make out, with a half dozen
REAL fine men to pick from, men that used to sail all over the
world in command of their own ships--not just little mackerel
boats, which was all Dave Cummings ever skippered.  I guess he's
smart enough about money and all that, but he's as common as
dishwater.  Why wouldn't he be?  His father was only a clam digger.
As for old Barney Cummings, his grandfather--well, if there's
anybody who can get on my nerves it's that old critter, I just
can't STAND him, that's all.  Why, when--"

Mary Brewster rose from the rocker.  The feud between Mrs. Crisp
and old Captain Barnabas Cummings was of long standing.  When the
housekeeper got on that subject it required desperate measures to
stop her.

"I know, I know, Azure," she put in, hastily.  "Now run along,
please.  Captain Cummings may be here any moment now.  You'll be
awfully late if you don't hurry.  Good night."

Mrs. Crisp went out, as far as the hall, but a moment later,
arrayed in her sealskin cape and bonnet--the cape an inheritance
from the late Mrs. Brewster, Mary's mother--she looked in at the
sitting-room door to fire a final shot.

"I'm thankful it's pretty nigh dark already," she declared with
fervor.  "Melissa Knowles won't be able to make out who 'tis comin'
here, that's some comfort.  What your father, or your mother--to
say nothin' of your grandmother--would think of a Cummings comin'
to this house--except to peddle clams at the back door--_I_ don't
know.  Mary Brewster, don't you let him stay a minute longer than
it's needful, will you?  I--I almost wish I wasn't goin' to lodge
meetin'."

She went, however, and Mary, closing the front door behind her,
breathed a sigh of relief.  Then she returned to her chair by the
table and again opened and read the letter from Bolles and Snell,
the Boston brokers.  It was a long letter and every word was like a
ton weight upon her spirits and--yes, her conscience.  If only she
had heeded Captain Cummings' advice and had not bought the Boroda
stock.  If only she had not gone to see Mr. Snell in the beginning.
But she was desperate.  Snell, Senior, had been a friend of her
father's; he had handled the latter's investments during his
lifetime.  The present Snell, his son, of course knew nothing as to
the amount of the Brewster fortune.  Like every one else--except
Mary herself--he accounted Mary Brewster a rich woman.  But she was
far from that.  When her mother's estate was settled by the
executor, Judge Baxter of Ostable, since dead, the income from it
netted scarcely three thousand a year.  The old house and all the
real property were left to Mary, but brother Benjamin, in Denver,
shared equally with her in money and securities.  Consequently
Mary's annual income from her share of these was less than fifteen
hundred.  The Brewster house was old, it needed constant repair; so
did the barn and outbuildings.  The upkeep of the place was
considerable.  And, as Azure had reminded her that very evening, a
Brewster had a position to maintain.  She did her best to maintain
it, economizing in every way she could contrive, postponing the
needful repairs until the very last minute, scrimping herself in
the matter of clothes, of little personal comforts, everything but
the barest necessities.  And always, of course, hiding from every
one her reasons for so doing.  Even Azure's modest wage had become
a burden, but Azure Crisp was as much a part of that house as its
rooftree.  It is doubtful if she would have given up her situation
even if ordered to do so.  And Mary could never have given the
order.  If the proud old Brewster ship must sink it might as well
go down with all hands.  Azure should--she would anyway--stay in
that house as long as its mistress.

But something had to be done, it must be done.  She went to Boston
and called upon Mr. Snell.  She did not tell him how poor she was.
She had meant to, but the Brewster pride was too strong.  Instead
she told him merely that she felt she should have more money than
she was receiving from her investments and asked him how that money
might be provided.  "Other people make money, a lot of money, in
the stock market," she said.  "I know they do.  Why can't I?  I
want to make some money, Mr. Snell.  Tell me how to make it."

Snell gave her the customary caution against speculation.  "Of
course I might suggest certain stocks which I believe are almost
sure to increase largely in value," he said, "but with the chance
of profit there is always a corresponding chance of loss.  If I
were you--"

But Mary insisted.  Still protesting, she laughingly declared that
she was determined to make money somehow and did not see why she
should not succeed in the stock market as well as others.  Snell,
after reflection, suggested several stocks in the future of which
he believed.  Among them, and offering perhaps, the most glittering
possibility, were the shares of the Boroda Copper Company.

"The Boroda people have a fine prospect out there," he said.  "From
what I hear from reliable sources the property they own is in the
richest section of copper production.  They have only just begun to
mine, of course, but the ore already taken out is very good indeed.
I believe in the thing myself and I have personally bought several
thousand shares.  Of course, as I say, it is a risk.  You never can
tell."

He was so reluctant to have her act immediately upon the suggestion
that she promised to give the matter a few days' consideration.
But her mind was really made up before she took the train to
Wapatomac.  The day after her arrival there she dropped in at the
local bank, and the little room at the rear where, between the
hours of eleven and one, Captain David Cummings, the bank's
president, was sure to be found.

She had known Dave Cummings since she was a little girl.  He was
older than she, a big boy in the "upstairs" grade at school when
she attended "downstairs," in the primary department.  Later on, he
and she had met often, never at her house or his, but at public
functions, amateur dramatic entertainments at the town hall, or
during her short period of attendance at Mr. Hathaway's dancing
school, a period which her mother had ended abruptly the night when
young Cummings had "seen her home" after the evening lesson was
over.  In Annabelle Brewster's eyes for a Cummings to act as escort
for her daughter was presumption unparalleled.

"I am sorry, Mr. Hathaway," she said, when the dancing master
called timidly seeking an explanation of his pupil's absence, "but
I have decided to have Mary take private lessons with Miss Danby in
Ostable.  Oh no, I have no fault to find with your teaching.  This
seems best to me, that is all."

And Hathaway, quite aware of the sharp line of social distinction
in "Snob Town," understood and argued no further.  Between the
families of the aristocracy and the common herd was a great gulf
fixed.  To be of the former one must have, not only money, but
fathers and grandfathers who had commanded, perhaps owned, square-
rigged deep-sea merchantmen; one must reside in one of the fine old
houses like the Brewster house; must attend, control and support
the old First Church, founded in 1698.  Others--poor relations, or
family retainers like Mrs. Crisp, or occasional vouched-for
newcomers like Doctor Hamilton and his wife, or Peter Hall, the
bank cashier--were permitted to attend services or "socials" or
other functions of that church, but they were neither encouraged
nor expected to offer opinions concerning its management or the
kind of religion preached from its pulpit.  The remainder of
Wapatomac's churchgoing residents attended the "New Meetinghouse"
on the lower road.  The First Church had its own cemetery, neat,
select and enclosed within a granite and iron fence.  The "New
Church burying ground" was on the outskirts of the village and its
fence was of wood.

The Cummings family was, so far as term of residence in Wapatomac
was concerned, as old as the Brewsters.  But there resemblance
ended.  The Cummingses had been fishermen and longshoremen from the
beginning.  Captain Barnabas, David's grandfather, had for forty
years owned and commanded the mackerel schooner Sophia.  His son,
David's father, had sailed and fished with him until the Sophia was
wrecked in the great gale of 1898.  His ambition seemed to have
been wrecked with the schooner and, after the catastrophe, he was
content to do "odd jobs" and, as Mrs. Crisp said, to peddle clams
and fish in the village.  He was dead now.  During the last few
years of his life his son, David, supported him.

For David WAS ambitious.  Even as a boy he had been a hard worker,
shrewd, saving and capable.  He worked and planned and prospered.
Now, at middle age, he was the head of D. Cummings & Co., wholesale
dealers in oysters and shellfish, with buildings at the Narrows
where Scallop River joins the South Harbor.  Always, except in the
brief season when the river was frozen, sloops, scows and an
occasional fore and aft schooner were moored at or near the
Cummings wharves, and a dozen dories and as many men were busy.
David had commanded his own schooner at one time, hence his title
of Captain.  Later, as his business grew, he gave his attention to
that.  He dabbled a little in local politics, was a member of the
Board of Selectmen and, for the past few years, had been president
of the Wapatomac bank.  It was the first time in the institution's
history that one other than an ancient, dignified, retired captain
of a square-rigger had filled its presidential chair.  The fact
that David Cummings had been chosen to fill it was a testimonial to
his honesty and business ability.  The commoners among the
townspeople respected and trusted him and looked up to him.  The
aristocracy shared the trust, but, socially speaking, continued to
look condescendingly down upon him.  After all, he was only a
Cummings and the Cummingses did not attend the First Church, nor,
when they died, were they buried inside the granite and iron fence.
Nevertheless, in spite of all this, the members of Wapatomac's
inner circle felt perfectly safe in entrusting their bank accounts
to his care.  And it was to him that Mary Brewster had gone, the
day following her return from Boston, to ask his opinion of Boroda
Copper.

Captain David had listened intently to her questions.  He took some
time to reflect before he answered.  Then he said:

"Why, yes, I do know somethin' about the Boroda stock, as it
happens.  Last week, when I was up to Boston, seein' about some
loans and other bank matters, the Boston bank fellow I was talkin'
with had a good deal to say about it.  He seemed to think it was
more or less of a sure thing.  Anybody who went into it, he said,
and could afford to hang on long enough, would make money--
probably.  He gave me the company's statement and a whole lot of
printed stuff and I took it back here with me and read it, careful.
You see, I--well," with evident fear that she might consider him as
boasting, "once in a while--a great while--I have a little extra
money to put by and sometimes I take a little flyer in a stock that
looks liable to make a good turnover.  And this Boroda Copper, I
give in, does look a good deal that way."

Mary's eyes sparkled.  "Oh!" she cried.  "Then you think I should
buy it.  I'm so glad.  I wanted to very much."

He shook his head.  "No," he said, firmly.  "No.  I don't think you
should.  I think you'd better stay out of it."

She leaned back in her chair.  "Why?" she demanded, surprise and
disappointment in her tone.  "Why do you say that?  This banker--
you just said so--thought it was almost a sure thing.  And you said
yourself you thought it might be."

"Yes, so I did.  But 'might' is the word that counts there.  It
might--and then again it might not.  Any minin' property, any new
one anyhow, is risky at the best."

"Captain Cummings, tell me the truth.  Did YOU buy any of that
Boroda stock?  For yourself, I mean. . . .  I believe you did."

He was a little embarrassed at first.  Then he smiled, a smile
which broadened and ended in a laugh.

"Well--yes," he admitted.  "Yes, I did.  I bought a pretty fair-
sized block of it, if you must know.  Whether I was a fool or not
remains to be seen."

She nodded triumphantly.  "I thought so," she declared.  "I don't
know why, unless it was because you looked so--so guilty.  You
bought that very stock, a lot of it, and yet you sit there and tell
me not to.  If you can explain THAT I shall be obliged."

He shrugged his broad shoulders.  "I bought it," he said, "as a
chance that looked to be worth takin'.  I had a little extra money,
some I wasn't expectin', and I took a risk with it, that's all.  If
I win--first rate.  If I lose I shan't be very much worse off than
I was before that extra money dropped in.  BUT," he added, very
earnestly, "I never would have let this bank buy any of it.  No,
and I wouldn't advise you, or any one else to buy it.  It isn't an
investment really, not a sure, safe one.  It looks good now; that's
the best I can say for it."

She persisted, feminine fashion.

"But you did buy it," she asserted.  "And if you did, why shouldn't
I?"

He ran a big, sunburned hand through his thick hair.

"It's--it's kind of hard for me to say just what I'm thinkin'," he
replied, hesitatingly.  "I haven't got any right to say it, really.
I don't know--naturally, I don't--how you--er--well, how much you
can afford to risk in a thing like this.  Your investments now, and
your income, they--well, they are your own business, you see."

"Certainly they are," with dignity.

"Yes.  Yes, of course.  Don't think I'm tryin' to pry into 'em.
But if I had a mother, or a sister, or even a friend, whose money
was invested in sound securities that brought in a fair income, I'd
surely tell 'em to be satisfied with that and not go playin' with a
minin' stock.  You see," he added, with a smile, "this buyin' a fog
bank cheap with the idea that it may turn out to be a rain cloud by
and by has got two sides to it.  Just as likely as not the wind
comes up no'thwest and blows everything clear.  If you've got a few
spare thousand that's troublin' you and you feel you can afford to
go fishin' with it--that's one thing.  But if it's goin' to hurt to
lose the bait then--well then, I should say don't touch Boroda
Copper."

This was his advice, the opinion she had come there to ask.  But,
nevertheless, on the afternoon mail of the very day of this
interview she wrote to Bolles and Snell ordering them to sell
certain bonds which were hers and invest the proceeds in shares of
the Boroda Copper Company.

And since then, for a period of two months, she had been an eager
searcher of the financial columns of the Boston Advertiser.  During
the first six weeks what she found there was pleasant.  Nothing to
cause undue excitement, but distinctly pleasant.  Boroda shares had
risen slightly in value day by day.  And then they began to drop--
drop.  Now they were selling at a figure much below that which she
had paid for them.  Her anxious letter to Mr. Snell had brought the
reply which she was now reading for the fourth time.  Snell had
written that news from the Boroda development was not as reassuring
as it might be, as he had confidently expected it to be.  The vein
of ore which the new company had been working was far less rich
than at first.  Apparently the main copper deposit was deeper down
than they had expected.  Consequently they must go after it.  New
machinery would be needed, and soon.

"It is nothing to worry about, I feel sure," he wrote.  "It means
delay, of course, perhaps a delay of a year or even more, but every
one on the inside is as confident as ever; I am, myself.  I did my
best to make clear to you that Boroda was a speculation, not a
certain investment, and, as you bought with that understanding,
why, although the temporary shrinkage in price is a disappointment,
I take it that it is not of great importance to you.  Hold on, and
in the end, I feel certain you will make money."

"Hold on"--"A year or more!"  And meanwhile her income, instead of
being greater, was smaller by the interest on the bonds she had
sold.  She had been barely able to make both ends meet before.  Now
it seemed impossible to do even that.  And the repairs, and
clothes, and all the rest!  After two dreadful days and two
sleepless nights she had so far resolved:  First, that calling
herself wicked and a fool for buying the copper stock in spite of
Snell's and Captain Cummings' advice was, although she continued to
do it, of no practical use.  Second, that she must do something
which was useful and practical and do it at once.  Her ideas of
what that something was to be were of the vaguest.  She had dropped
in at the bank that morning and left a note asking Captain David to
call and see her on a matter of business.  He had sent word that he
would do so "just before supper time."  It was Wapatomac's supper
time now.

And, as she sat there, the letter drooping despairingly from her
fingers, she heard his step upon the walk.




CHAPTER II


She hastily replaced the letter between the pages of the book on
the table and hurried to the hall.  Her hand was upon the knob of
the massive front door and she was about to open it, before she
realized that she was not allowing him time even to knock.  For
her, a Brewster, to appear so eager to admit a caller as all that
was to say the least undignified.  What would Azure say if she were
present?  And that caller a Cummings!  Azure would have allowed him
to knock three times before deigning to open.  Mary's dignity was
far below the high plane of Mrs. Crisp's, but she waited,
nevertheless.  She must be careful--very careful.  She had
determined to make perfectly plain to Captain David that she was in
earnest in what she should say to him, but she was just as
determined that even he should not guess the desperate need behind
her appeal for advice.  No one should guess that, no one in
Wapatomac.

She stood there, waiting, until the knocker on the other side of
the door squeaked upward and fell with a clang.  Then, after
another brief wait, she opened the door.

"Oh, good evening, Captain Cummings," she said.  "I imagined it
might be you.  Azure is out; she has gone down to the lodge supper.
Won't you come in?"

He entered.  He was a big man and wore a heavy and shaggy overcoat
and a blue cloth yachting cap with a leather visor, the usual
headgear of most Wapatomac men, those not members of the
aristocracy, at that period.  He removed the cap and stood there
looking down at her.  His florid cheeks were even redder than
usual, for he had walked fast and faced the wind all the way up the
hill.

"Good evenin', good evenin'," he said.  "I've kept you waitin', I'm
afraid.  Weren't just in the middle of supper, were you?"

"Oh, no, indeed!  I didn't expect you before.  I am glad to see
you.  Thank you very much for coming.  Won't you throw off your
coat?"

"Eh?  No, no, I guess not.  My own supper's about ready, I suppose,
and the Skipper and Kohath will give me an overhaulin' if I'm too
late."

"The Skipper" was his pet name for old Captain Barnabas Cummings,
his grandfather.  Kohath Briggs was the Cummings "help," a veteran
who had worked at many trades during his lifetime, but had
succeeded in making a living only at the one he hated, namely that
of cook.  He had cooked for Captain Barney aboard the Sophia, and
it was on the old gentleman's recommendation that Captain David had
hired him in that capacity six years before.  Mary knew them both,
of course, and they were favorite subjects of Azure Crisp's
conversation--particularly when she was "out of sorts" and seeking
a vent for her feelings.

Miss Brewster led the way to the sitting room and her caller
followed her.  At her invitation he sat down upon the sofa.  She
took the rocker.  Captain Dave, bolt upright beneath the portrait
of great-grandfather Brewster, appeared distinctly ill at ease.
She had suggested that he leave his cap on the hall table, but he
had brought it with him and did not seem to know exactly what to do
with it.  He laid it upon the sofa beside him and it slid from the
shiny haircloth to the floor.  He picked it up and again it slid to
the carpet.  This time he laid it on his knee and held it there
with his hand.

Mary noticed his obvious embarrassment with some surprise.  In his
office at the bank, where day after day he was, as she knew,
accustomed to meet all sorts of people, he never seemed awkward or
embarrassed.  Why he should appear so uncomfortable just now she
could not understand.  And yet Azure would have understood.  During
David Cummings' forty-two years of life he had crossed the
threshold of the Brewster house but twice before.  He had attended
Captain Ben Brewster's funeral and that of his wife, but most of
Wapatomac kept him company on those occasions.  His visit this time
was quite a different matter.  Every tradition of Wapatomac was
broken by a member of his family calling upon one of hers.  Captain
Dave Cummings was by no means the possessor of what, in these
psychologic days, would be termed an "inferiority complex"; he was
self-respecting and bowed the knee to no one.  But custom is custom
and Wapatomac was Wapatomac.

He clutched the cap tightly and made a remark concerning the
weather.  It was still blowing a living gale of wind, he observed.
Mary said it sounded as if it were.  Then she thanked him again for
taking the trouble to climb the hill in such a gale.

"Oh, that's all right, that's all right," he said, hastily.  "Not a
mite of trouble.  Does me good to stretch my legs after keepin' 'em
folded up astern of a desk most of the afternoon.  Sorry I wasn't
in when you traveled way down to the bank in the rain," he added.
"I was a little mite late this mornin'."

"No, I was early. . . .  But you got my note?  Yes, of course you
did.  You answered it and you are here now.  That was a ridiculous
question, wasn't it?"

She was beginning to share his embarrassment.  What she had to say
to him was so--so personal and so hard to say!  If he would only
ask her what she wanted.  But he did not.  He sat there and waited,
that was all.

"I--I haven't asked about your family," she said, in desperation.
"They are well, I hope?"

This remark was more inane than the other.  He was a bachelor.

"I mean your grandfather," she explained, reddening.  "How is he?"

This seemed to amuse him.  He chuckled.

"Oh, he is lively as a June bug in May," he replied.  "The Skipper
will be eighty-two in January, but you would never guess it.  He's
talkin' already about what he's goin' to plant in the garden next
spring.  He is the youngest one in our house and Kohath is next.
Kohath is over sixty himself.  They are a pair, those two.
Compared to them I'm all of a hundred and twenty."

He chuckled again at the thought.  Mary did not find it amusing.
"Oh, don't talk about ages," she said, impulsively.  "It's a
hateful subject, _I_ think."

He nodded.  "That's because you are young," he observed.  "I'm not
so old myself that my birthdays don't keep addin' on in the regular
way.  The Skipper and Kohath now, theirs subtract, seems so.  The
Skipper had whoopin' cough last summer.  I told him I'd been
expectin' he might.  'By the time you're a hundred,' I said to him,
'you'll be young enough to have the croup.'  Ho, ho!"

She made no comment.  He went on.

"The Skipper reads every word of the 'Wapatomac Jottin's' in the
Item the minute the paper comes to hand," he continued.  "Reads 'em
and has an opinion ready to spring on me soon's I get home.  And
before that he's tried 'em out on Kohath.  Course Kohath's opinions
are always just the opposite.  If the Skipper says 'Port' Kohath
says 'Starboard,' and they're off.  They never agree on anything
while they are by themselves, but you let an outsider come aboard
and they agree on everything--everything the outsider doesn't, I
mean.  I don't know what I should do," he added, "if I didn't have
that pair around to keep me stirred up and interested.  Be pretty
lonesome, I guess."

He looked up at her with a smile.  She managed to smile also, but
it was with an effort.

"It must be wonderful," she said, "to have things which interest
you and keep you busy.  I don't think you should talk about being
lonely, Captain David.  You have your oyster business and the bank--
and, oh, a thousand things.  All your life long you have done what
you wanted to do.  No one has told you you mustn't do this or you
shouldn't do that.  And now look at you!  You are comfortable and
prosperous and respected and--oh, everything!  You have done it all
yourself, too. . . .  Lonely!" with a sudden catch in her voice.
"Oh, how can you!  You don't know what the word means."

She had not intended to say so much, certainly not to permit the
way she felt from expressing itself so obviously.  She had intended
to be dignified and casual at first; then gradually to lead up to
the important subject of their interview.  If only he had not
mentioned ages and loneliness!  She was provoked at him for
mentioning them and more provoked with herself for permitting them
to trap her into such a premature revelation of her state of mind.
Now it was too late.  He was regarding her with astonishment and
some concern.

"Why--why, what's all this?" he asked, quickly, and before she
could continue.  "Why do you say--"

"Oh, never mind!" she put in, hastily.  "I beg your pardon for
saying it.  I shouldn't have, of course.  I am--I am nervous to-
night and I--well, I scarcely know what I am saying, I'm afraid.  I
want to talk with you, Captain Cummings, about--about ever so many
things."

He was still looking at her intently.

"Hum," he observed, after a moment.  "You're nervous, you say.
Why?"

"Oh--because I am.  I have enough to make me so."

"I'm sorry to hear that.  Trouble of some sort, eh?  I hope nothing
serious."

"Serious enough.  I am--I am perfectly wretched.  Yes, and
desperate.  That is why I asked you to come here.  I must talk to
some one.  Captain Cummings, will you let me talk to you?  Yes, and
will you help me, if you can?  Try to help me?  Somebody MUST."

The dignity and calm had again fled.  There was no attempt at
pretense now.  The cap slid from his knee to the floor and he did
not pick it up.  He leaned forward on the sofa.

"Why--why, sure I will, Mary," he said, earnestly.  "I'll help any
way I can, of course.  Only I don't see--You are desperate, you
say?  What does that mean?  What's gone wrong?"

She shook her head.  "Everything!" she declared.  "Just everything.
Nothing is right."

He absently ran his hand through his hair.  He had combed it very
carefully before leaving the office, but he forgot that now.  He
rumpled it until it bristled.  He was thinking hard.

"Humph!" he mused.  "So nothin's right, eh?  Humph! . . .  Mary, in
your note you wrote that you wanted to see me on a matter of
business.  I took it for granted that it was some--well, some money
business, like--like that Boroda Copper matter you came to see me
about a couple of months ago.  I'm thankful I said for you not to
buy that copper stock.  That company's sort of run aground from
what I hear, and it may be some time before they get it afloat
again--if they do.  If you'd bought that stock . . . but, thank
goodness, you didn't."

This last sentence was not precisely a question, but there was a
hint of question in it.  It forced Mary Brewster to the realization
that she must be more careful.  The subject of Boroda Copper was
the very one she had meant should not be broached during their
talk.  No one in Wapatomac should know she had bought that stock,
least of all this man whose advice she had asked--and disregarded
the day it was given.  She was prepared to confess a good deal but
not that--to him.  She must be more guarded, she must be.  She
fought for composure and regained it, in a measure.  Her next
speech was calm enough certainly and it had nothing to do with
Boroda Copper.

"I don't wonder you think it odd I should break out in this way,"
she said, trying to smile.  "I must have sounded as if I were on
the verge of suicide.  Well, I am not.  It isn't as desperate as
all that.  It is just that, as I said before, I have reached the
point when I must talk to some one and you were the only one I
could think of.  Captain Cummings, I want to do something in this
world, do it on my own account."

He rumpled his hair again.  His expression of puzzled bewilderment
was funny.  She laughed, in spite of herself.  "And you can't guess
what I mean by that, can you," she said.  "I don't wonder.  Well,
now listen, and I'll explain.  To begin with, no matter whether you
are lonely or not, I am.  Terribly lonely.  I said I was desperate--
and that is true, too.  If you were shut up in this big house with
not a single worth-while thing to occupy your mind from week to
week-end you would be as desperate as I am.  I can't stand it any
longer, Captain David, I want to work."

If the Queen of England had come to him with a similar declaration
it could not have sounded more ridiculous.  The Brewster men had
always been hard workers, during their working years; but the
Brewster women--!  He stared.

"Work!" he repeated.  "You! . . .  Oh, come now, what's the joke?"

"There isn't any joke at all.  I am very serious.  DON'T look like
that--please.  I don't mean I want to shovel sand or--or open
oysters at your wharf.  I mean that I have made up my mind to do
something, some sort of work, that will keep me busy and--yes,
bring me in a little more money.  And I hope you can help me to
find that work. . . .  Oh, PLEASE!" impatiently; "don't sit there
and stare as if I were asking you to help me commit murder.
There's nothing so terrible about it."

One word in this statement had made an impression upon his mind.
All the rest he would have dismissed as a "woman's notion."  His
experience with women had not been extensive, but during his
occupancy of the president's chair at the bank he had been
consulted by a number of widows and spinsters and they were full of
"notions" most of which were impractical.  But the word "money"
meant something.  It might explain what otherwise was quite
unexplainable.

"Well, well!" he said, after a moment.  "I guess I understand--a
little anyhow.  So you want more money, eh?  Well, lots of folks
would keep you company there.  Most everybody wants more than
they've got.  But--Humph!  Thinkin' of shiftin' some of your
investments, were you?  I'll be glad to look over the list with
you.  It isn't a bad idea to do that every once in a while,
anyhow."

She shook her head.  "That isn't the point at all," she declared.
"I wish I could make you understand.  I want to work.  And I shall
work--somehow and in some way.  Now listen and I'll tell you just
the situation."

She did tell him.  Not the whole but enough to make plain the
reasons for her determination.  She explained that her income was
not nearly as large as people imagined it to be.  She wanted money
to spend for the house, on herself, for clothes, for all sorts of
things.  She was obliged to figure closely and it irked her to have
to do it.

"Humph!" he observed, when she paused momentarily.  "Yes, yes.
Well, perhaps that isn't so desperate.  Maybe we can find a way to
help that state of affairs.  We can try anyhow.  Suppose you get
that list--"

But she broke in.  She had no intention of letting him see that
list.

"Never mind the securities," she said, hastily.  "They are well
enough, I guess--what there is of them.  But lack of money isn't
the whole trouble, although I suppose if I had enough of it the
other troubles might settle themselves.  I haven't a thing in this
world to keep me interested.  I am all alone in this house.  Day
after day I sit here by myself and think until it seems as if I
should go crazy.  Azure is with me, of course, and she talks and
talks and talks, but never of anything except the shingles off the
roof and the pickets off the fence, and the new clothes I ought to
have and the neighbors and the church squabbles and the cat and the
rats and the teakettle and--oh, mercy, I don't know!  I can't stand
it, Captain Cummings.  I WON'T stand it.  If I sit here any longer
with my hands folded I shall DIE. . . .  Now what shall I do?"

She was very close to tears; but even yet it was clear that he did
not wholly understand, although he was trying hard to do so.

"Humph!" he mused, reflectively.  "Humph!  Yes--yes, I suppose
maybe it IS kind of dull for you, although to give in I shouldn't
have thought of it that way.  With this fine house to look after,
and the church work and all, I should have supposed that you'd be
kept pretty busy."

"Busy!" scornfully.  "Busy fretting and worrying myself into the
grave.  That is precisely the sort of business I want to get away
from."

He was struck with what he evidently considered a bright idea.

"Then GET away from it," he said.  "Do just that very thing.  Pack
up and go somewhere else for a change.  Go off on a trip.  Get
clear of Wapatomac and Azure Crisp and the front fence and the cat
and the teakettle.  Go away for a while and forget 'em.  That's my
prescription."

She sighed wearily.  "I am afraid I haven't made it plain enough,
after all," she said.  "Your prescription isn't exactly new.  The
last time I had a cold and Azure insisted on sending for Doctor
Hamilton he suggested that a sea voyage might be of benefit.
Perhaps it would.  No doubt a trip around the world would be a
wonderful thing for me.  Unfortunately it would be expensive.
If I can't afford to live here I can scarcely afford to travel.
I should think that was fairly obvious, Captain Cummings."

"But I wasn't thinkin' of your goin' around the world.  You've got
lots of friends--must have.  I haven't got so many, of course, but
even I can think of a half dozen who would be glad to see me if I
dropped in on 'em for a fortni't or so.  They've said so lots of
times and I guess likely they mean it.  With all the friends you
must have, and your father and mother had, why--"

"Oh, don't!  We are wasting time.  Friends?  Why yes, I have
friends and they often invite me to visit them.  But to do that I
should need new clothes, and money to spend, and I haven't got it."

"Now, now wait a minute.  I've just thought of the very thing.
Your brother Ben--out West there--in Denver, ain't he?  You could
go and see him.  He wouldn't care about your clothes.  It is you he
would want to see.  Of course he would!"

She shrugged.  "You are taking a good deal for granted," she said.
"My half brother and I are far more like strangers than relatives.
I have seen him but twice in twenty years and I never hear from
him.  He would be the last person on earth I should dream of
visiting.  And I can't visit any one.  I can't go anywhere.  And I
can't stay here, either--as I am.  Captain Cummings, you MUST
understand that I mean exactly what I say.  I want to do something,
something which will keep my mind occupied and for which I shall be
paid, even if the pay is small.  I'm not clever, but I won't
believe I am quite a fool.  You know ever so many business people
in Boston, or Denboro or Ostable--everywhere.  And they know you.
Isn't there somebody who could give me a position of some kind?  I
don't much care--no, I don't really care what sort of position it
is, so long as it is respectable and pays a salary. . . .  There!
that is the exact, plain truth.  I mean every word of it.  Now do
you believe I am in earnest?"

He was obliged to believe.  But his astonishment was not lessened
by that belief.  He picked up the cap from the floor and sat
twisting it between his hands.

"Humph! . . .  Pshaw!" he muttered.  "Mary, I--well, I must say!
Then--then the matter of business you sent for me to talk about was
this, eh?  You want me to help you find a--a job?  I mean--"

"'Job' will do perfectly well.  Other Wapatomac girls and women
have their 'jobs.'  Why shouldn't I?  I won't believe I am more
stupid than they are."

He whistled between his teeth.  She persisted.

"Do you think I am?" she demanded.

"Eh?  No, no!  Course I don't.  I've known you all your life.
You're the last one I'd call that.  And I've known your family.  If
there ever was a stupid Brewster then he or she never crossed my
bows."

"Well, then!"

"That's just it.  You ARE a Brewster.  If your name was Oaks or
Beasley or--well, Cummings, it would be different."

"Suppose it was.  What of it?"

"Eh?  Well, then I suppose likely I shouldn't have been sittin'
here on this sofa for half an hour, like a pullet on a roost,
without makin' a cackle that was worth listenin' to.  I'd have
understood what you were after in the beginnin'."

"You understand it now.  And if you will be good enough to forget
my name, or try and think it IS Beasley or Oaks or--anything but
what it is--I shall be very much obliged.  If I wished to be
reminded of my family name Azure would do it for me.  She takes
pains, a dozen times a day, to remind me that I am a Brewster.  For
a month or more I have been wishing I were anything BUT that.  If I
were a Beasley I should probably have been self-respecting and
self-supporting long before this."

"Hum. . . .  Have you got any idea as to the kind of--of work you'd
like to do?"

"Not definitely--no.  I have tried to think, but thinking hasn't
helped me at all.  I can paint a little--so can a hundred others.
The market for hand-painted chocolate sets and velvet panels
ornamented with sprays of golden-rod isn't extensive.  I embroider
fairly well, but there are women in our own sewing circle who are
far better at it than I.  Those are my accomplishments and I am not
proud of them.  I AM fairly accurate at figures.  I studied
bookkeeping at the academy, when I was away at school, and I used
to help father with his money affairs; he was interested in a
number of small business ventures after he retired from the sea.
He was very particular and, even when I was a girl, he insisted on
my keeping a personal expense account.  I have kept one ever since,
and kept it correctly.  Unfortunately I know it is correct now--too
discouragingly correct."

He was looking at her with a peculiar expression.

"So you can keep books, eh?" he murmured.  "I didn't know that."

"Of course you didn't.  And perhaps I can't, really.  I don't
pretend that I could keep an elaborate set of books."

"No-o. . . .  Still you could learn, I suppose."

"I suppose I might, if any one gave me the opportunity--and was
patient."

"Humph! . . .  Sho!"

Again he was rumpling his hair and the expression upon his face was
still peculiar.  He looked like a person to whose mind had suddenly
flashed a most unexpected idea, an idea which was intriguing but
disturbing.  After a moment of anxious expectancy she could wait no
longer.

"What is it, Captain Cummings?" she begged.  "You are thinking of
something, I can see that.  Have you--oh, DO you know of a chance
for me?  Do you?"

He had dropped the cap again, but now he picked it up and sat
absently crumpling it between his palms as before.

"Pshaw!" he muttered impatiently.  "I'm gettin' into the habit of
thinkin' out loud, I guess.  It's a bad habit, too, and I don't
need any extra ones--of that kind."

"But you do know of something.  You have just thought of it.  I can
see you have.  Oh, don't keep me waiting.  What is it, please?"

He was evidently loath to reply.  And the reply, when it came was
noncommittal.

"Why--why, yes, Mary," he admitted.  "Yes, I do know of a place
where a sort of assistant bookkeeper is goin' to be needed pretty
soon."

"You do? . . .  Really?"

"Yes, I do.  And so do a dozen others; although it's been agreed,
for reasons, not to tell outsiders until a decision is made.  I
shouldn't have let the cat out of the bag, even to you.  I
shouldn't have done it.  Your sayin' you could keep books caught me
asleep on watch."

"I'm glad it did.  If there is any hope for me anywhere I must know
it.  Where is it that a bookkeeper will be needed, Captain
Cummings?"

He shook his head.  "That I can't tell you--yet," he said.  "And
you mustn't pin any real hope in it, because--well, because--"

She finished the sentence for him.

"_I_ see," she sighed.  "You think I wouldn't be competent to fill
the place.  No doubt you are right.  I don't suppose I am competent
to do anything worth while."

He raised the hand with the crumpled cap in it in protest.

"Now, now, now," he cautioned, "you mustn't say that.  It isn't
true and I wasn't thinkin' any such thing.  I shouldn't wonder if
you could fill the bill.  It might be kind of strange and hard for
you along at first, but you would pull through.  Of course you
would!" with absolute conviction.  "You could do anything you set
your mind to."

"Could I?  Thank you.  I wish I were as certain as you pretend to
be."

"No pretendin' about it.  You could do it.  The only thing is that--
no, there are a lot of things.  First, there has never been a
woman at that desk.  It's always been a man."

"What of that?  Women are doing such work more and more.  In Boston
offices I have seen ever so many women bookkeepers.  So have you;
you must have."

"Um-hum.  I have.  But that was Boston, not Wapatomac.  Mary, what
do you suppose Wapatomac would say if you, Captain Ben Brewster's
daughter, went to work at a job--like Georgianna Beasley or Elsie
Oaks, say--for so much a week, right here in your own town?"

In spite of her brave resolve this plain presentation of the
question staggered her.  She was quite aware of the sensation her
taking such a step would cause.  She had tried to put it from her
mind, had called it false pride and fought against it, but here it
was--an actuality--a question to be faced and answered.

"Oh, the position is in--in Wapatomac?" she faltered.  "I thought,
perhaps--"

"That it might be somewhere else?  Well, this one isn't.  It is
right here.  Where you would be meetin' about everybody you know,
summer folks as well as the rest of us, every day.  There would be
things said.  For instance, what do you think Azure Crisp would say
when she found it out?  The first hullabaloo would be raised right
in this sittin' room, I shouldn't wonder."

There was no doubt of that.  Yet Mary was ready this time.  She
rose from the rocker.

"I don't care what Azure, or any one, may say," she declared,
resolutely.  "It is my own affair, and no one else's.  If you can
get that place for me, Captain Cummings, I will take it.  And I
will do my best not to make you ashamed of me afterward."

He rose also.  That he was disturbed was evidenced by his
expression.  He frowned and shifted his feet uneasily on the
Brussels carpet.

"Well," he said, after an interval of deliberation, "you must think
it over carefully and so must I.  And remember, it is a long way
from sure that I could put you in that place if we both were
certain you ought to try for it.  As a matter of fact there are two
others after it already.  Oh," with a sudden glance and a smile,
"THAT needn't discourage you so much.  To be honest, if there had
been only one he would most likely have had it before this.  When
there are two boats runnin' even in a race, and each skipper is
dead set on keepin' the other from winnin', it is pretty often the
third entry that lifts the cup.  It probably won't work that way in
this race, but--well, it might.  That isn't the whole thing, nor,
as I see it, even the main thing.

"Mary," he went on, earnestly, "when I say we must take time to
think this over, I mean it.  Think!  After all, in spite of your
lonesomeness and--and the rest of it, you're pretty comfortable
here.  You are respected and looked up to.  Your friends are the
best and oldest families in the town.  Maybe you've been sittin'
here alone too much, broodin' about this and that.  We are all
liable to get dissatisfied every now and again.  You just wait a
week or so and consider.  If you do I shouldn't be surprised if you
changed you mind.  Your position here in Wapatomac is--well, you
know what it is, as well as I do.  Your family have--"

Her foot had been impatiently patting the carpet while he offered
this well-intentioned counsel.  Now she brought it down with a
stamp.

"Oh, stop!" she exclaimed, sharply.  "You talk exactly like Azure.
My family is--I haven't any family.  As for my position, it is
impossible.  My mind is made up and no amount of thinking can
change it.  If you don't care to take the responsibility of
recommending me for this bookkeeper's place you have hinted at--and
I'm sure I don't blame you if you feel that way--then tell me where
it is and I will apply myself, without any recommendation.  Where
is it, Captain Cummings?"

His refusal was just as firm.  "I can't tell you," he said.
"You'll have to take my word that there are good reasons why I
can't.  I've got to do a barrel of thinkin' on my own hook first of
all, and then, if I do decide to go ahead, I've got to handle the
trick the way the boy spread the bread--with butter in each hand.
The best I can say now is that I'll think hard and do what seems
good--to me and for you.  That is all I can promise to-night and,
to be right down honest, it is more than I have any right to
promise at all.  Of course you won't say a word to anybody about
our talk."

"Of course not.  Is it likely I should?"

"Not a bit.  I beg your pardon."

"That's all right.  I am very grateful to you for thinking of me at
all.  It was kind of you to come here and very kind of you to
listen to my lamentations.  Of course you have been wondering all
this time why I selected you to hear them.  I knew you were used to
advising and helping people.  Mrs. Carleton told me how you helped
her when she was in trouble about her steamship stock.  I--well, I
felt that you would be willing to help me, if you could.  And--oh,
I don't know--it just seemed natural to go to you.  You were the
first one I thought of when I made up my mind I must ask somebody
for advice and help.  As father would have said, you were my sheet
anchor, Captain Cummings."

His reply to this confession was brief and embarrassed, but it was
evident that what she had said pleased him.

"Sho! sho!" he muttered.  "No trouble at all.  How much real help
I'm likely to be is doubtful enough, but I'll try; you needn't have
any doubt of that."

"I haven't any. . . .  Now I am sure I have made you late for
supper."

He protested that the Cummings supper hour was variable.

"The Skipper and Kohath are used to havin' me drift into port 'most
any time," he said.  "They wait about so long and then have supper
by themselves.  Lord bless you, THEY don't care.  They rather like
it, I guess.  It gives 'em a chance, while I'm eatin', to tell me
everything that's happened while I've been away, and what might
have happened if other things hadn't happened to stop 'em
happenin'. . . .  Well, good night, Mary.  I'll let you hear from
me in a day or two."

She said good night and thanked him again for the trouble he had
taken on her account.  He was standing by the door, with his
overcoat buttoned, but it seemed to her that he was listening
absently, and, when she met his look, that he was regarding her
with a questioning expression, as if he were unsatisfied, as if he
were seeking an answer to a puzzle which baffled him.

"Well, good night," he said, once more.  "Oh, and if you should
feel like goin' over those investments of yours at any time, I'll
be glad to run through 'em with you.  We might raise that income of
yours a little, you know."

She nodded.  "Yes," she answered, quickly.  "Perhaps, by and by.
That can wait.  It is that bookkeeping--er--'job' which is the
important thing just now."

"Yes.  Sure.  Of course. . . .  Humph!  Well, just the same, I am
mighty glad you didn't buy that Boroda stock.  As things are with
you just now--as you've told me they are, I mean--your puttin' your
money in that copper mine would have been pretty unfortunate. . . .
Eh?"

She glanced up, met his eye, and looked down again.

"It surely would," she agreed, trying hard to make her tone casual
and her manner unconcerned.  "Now you MUST go.  I feel guilty about
that supper of yours."

The door closed behind him.  She turned back to the rocker and sat
there for a few minutes lost in a reverie which, although not quite
as hopeless as that preceding Captain Cummings' call, was far from
pleasant.  There was a faint gleam of encouragement in it.  She
might--she MIGHT soon be earning sufficient to provide for the
needs of her wardrobe, the ell roof, the front fence and the
henhouse.  But in return for these additional dollars she must face
the disapproval and scornful disgust of Wapatomac--the aristocratic
section, her section of it.  After a time she rose from the rocker
and, without daring to glance at the portrait of great-grandfather
Brewster, went out to the dining room and sat down to her lonely
supper.

And Captain David Farragut Cummings, striding along the rain-washed
sidewalks toward his own supper, was lost in reflection.  He had
noted Mary Brewster's confusion when he referred to the Boroda
Copper shares.  He guessed--he was almost sure that he had the
answer to his puzzle.  If that answer were the true one then Miss
Brewster's desperate determination to break Wapatomac's rigid code
of social ethics was explainable.  But she had asked him to assist
in the breaking and, knowing his native village as he did, he
dreaded to be a partner to such a proceeding.  More than all, he
was provoked at himself for having, on the spur of the thought as
it came to him, mentioned his knowledge of the soon to be vacated
desk of assistant bookkeeper.  For that desk was in the Wapatomac
National Bank, the institution of which he was president.  The
trust and confidence of his fellow-directors as evidenced by their
selecting him to fill that important office had been a gratifying
tribute.  He had accepted the presidency with reluctance but,
having accepted, he had done his best to justify the choice.  So
far he had steered his way through the shoals of petty jealousies
and attempts at undue influence on the part of directors and
depositors, with one fixed resolve to mark the course, namely, that
nothing whatever--personal considerations, friendships, nothing--
should be allowed to interfere with the bank's welfare.

Just now he was in the midst of a battle no less strong for having
been fought in secret.  His board of directors had split into two
factions, and each had a candidate for the position of assistant
bookkeeper.  So far he had managed to keep the warfare under cover,
hoping for and seeking a basis of compromise.  When Mary Brewster
mentioned the fact that she could keep a set of books it had
suddenly occurred to him that here, possibly, was a basis of
compromise provided.  And, speaking without thinking, or, as he
said, thinking aloud, a most unusual indiscretion for him, he had
given her encouragement which he had no right to give.  A moment
later he realized it and ever since the realization had been
growing.

The thing was almost an impossibility.  First, it was by no means
certain that either faction would consent to a compromise.  Second,
provided he were enough of a diplomat to bring that consent about,
there would be strong opposition to the appointment of a woman.
Well, that opposition might be overcome.  If it were, and Mary made
good at the work, criticism would die away.  His expressed belief
in her ability was sincere, but there was always a possibility of
mistake.  Suppose she did not make good?  Suppose, after a fair
trial, she proved incompetent?  As it was he who had brought her
there, so upon him, and justly, would devolve the unpleasant duty
of telling her she could not stay.

He had known and admired Mary Brewster since she was a girl.  The
fact that she had turned to him when she needed help and advice was
a pleasant thought.  But there was the bank to be considered, first
and always.  Pshaw!  He had let himself in for a heavy
responsibility either way, and the more he reflected upon it the
heavier it became.




CHAPTER III


The Cummings house was not pure Colonial.  Captain Dave had built
it in 1895 and it bore the architectural stamp of the period.  It
was white, with green blinds, but it lacked the formal dignity of
the Brewster house and aristocratic Wapatomac sniffed at the
scroll-sawed ornamentation of its porch pillars and the colored
glass windows at each side of its stained oak front door.  Its
situation, moreover, was not upon the exclusive section of the main
road, but at the top of Nickerson's Hill, which rises above Scallop
River near the Narrows.  No ancient elms shaded its yard or
screened it from the curious gaze of passers-by.  There was a grove
of pitch pine at its right and at the left the hill sloped sharply
down to the cove and the buildings and wharves of D. Cummings & Co.
House and barn and fences and outbuildings were neat and trim; they
bore the stamp of self-respecting prosperity.  A stranger, viewing
them for the first time, might have guessed that their owner was a
person who was comfortably well-to-do, who paid his bills and
expected others to pay theirs, who took pride in his business and
his home and the town he lived in.  So guessing he would have
guessed rightly.  If he were very discerning he might have
supplemented his guess by another, that the said owner, being a
self-made man with ideas of his own, had built that house in
accordance with those ideas and was perfectly satisfied with the
result.

"No, sir," said Captain David to the Ostable architect who had
drawn the plans; "I don't want you to copy anybody else's house.
If I wanted a two-hundred-year-old house I could have bought one;
there's at least one for sale that I know of.  I'm buildin' this
house to live in and be comfortable in--to be myself in, as you
might say.  I'm not buildin' it to make believe be a Hathaway or a
Carleton or a Brewster in.  I like that kind of a front door and
I'm goin' to have it.  If I liked a blue one better I'd have that."

The gale was still blowing as the captain entered his yard and as
he turned the corner of the house a salty gust swept in from the
bay and the sea beyond with a force which struck his broad chest
like the push of a mighty hand.  The clouds were breaking, however,
and in the rifts between them a few stars twinkled.  The lighthouse
at Setuckit Point showed its speck low down in the east, and beyond
was a lesser one which marked the lightship at Hog's Back Shoal.
The main portion of the Cummings house was dark, but the windows of
the rear section glowed brightly.  Captain David turned the knob of
the door beneath the lattice where, in summer, the Virginia creeper
was wont to twine, and stepped directly into the dining room.

The table was set for supper, but the room, save for himself, was
devoid of human occupancy.  From the kitchen beyond, however,
sounded voices, animated masculine voices, their owners too busily
preoccupied to hear or heed his entrance.  He removed his overcoat
and hat and hung them in the closet.  Then, as the argument in the
kitchen continued without any apparent prospect of cessation, he
hailed.

"Ahoy there! you in the galley," he shouted.  "It's struck six
bells, didn't you know it?  Seems to me it is 'most time to stop
talkin' and think about eatin'."

The duet in the adjoining room broke off in the middle.  There was
the sound of a chair upsetting and then of hurrying feet.  Captain
Barnabas Cummings appeared in the doorway.  Captain Barney--no one
in Wapatomac, no commoner that is, ever called him anything but
that--was a little man, inclined to stoutness, with a round red
face surprisingly free from wrinkles considering his age, and a
shock of bristling, white hair.  He moved quickly, stepped briskly,
and when he spoke it was in a voice as strident as the note of a
small 'hand-powered' foghorn.

"Why, hello, Dave!" he roared.  "What do you mean catfootin' in
like this?  I never heard you come aboard. . . .  You're an hour
late; did you know it?"

Captain David nodded.  "Sorry, Skipper," he said.  "I had some
business that kept me.  You and Kohath have had your supper, of
course."

Before the Skipper could answer Kohath Briggs entered, bearing a
steaming platter in one hand and the teapot in the other.  Mr.
Briggs was tall and thin and moved and spoke with a deliberation
which caused a section of Wapatomac to refer to him as "awful
moderate."  He was dressed in a dark suit, shiny at knees, elbows
and shoulder blades, wore a black bow tie, and looked like a seedy
book agent, or an undertaker's helper, or a street corner preacher--
like almost anything except a man who had spent the greater part
of his life at sea in a schooner's galley.  He placed the platter
at one end of the table, the teapot at the other, and stood
mournfully regarding them.

Captain David took the chair at the end where the platter had been
placed, Captain Barney that at the opposite end.  Mr. Briggs
remained standing.  So far he had not spoken a word.  Captain
Barney, fidgeting in his seat, barked at him like a petulant
terrier.

"Well, well, well!" he snapped.  "What's the matter now, for heaven
sakes?  You look as if you was goin' to cry.  Don't the remains
look natural, or what ails you?  Sit down.  Dave and me are
hungry."

Kohath pulled back the chair at the side of the table and, folding
his long body in the middle, and his long legs at the knees, slid
awkwardly into place.

"I cal'late everything's all right," he drawled, sadly.  "I was
lookin' to see what I'd forgot."

"Forgot!  If you ain't had time enough to remember everything by
this time you never will have it.  You commenced to set table at
five o'clock and that codfish has been fried and settin' on the
back of the stove since six. . . .  Here!  Where you goin'?"

Mr. Briggs had unfolded himself and was rising to his feet.

"I'm goin' to fetch the spiderbread and the potatoes," he drawled.
"I had a feelin' I'd forgot somethin'."  He meandered as far as the
kitchen door and there paused.  "There's been so everlastin' much
talk goin' on," he added, "it's a wonder I ain't forgot my head."

He vanished into the kitchen.  Captain Barney called after him.

"If that was all you forgot nobody'd ever notice the difference,"
he shouted.  The cleverness of this retort pleased him so much that
he was still chuckling when the cook reappeared with the hot bread
and potatoes.

Captain David served the fish and his grandfather poured the tea.
Mr. Briggs sorrowfully passed the plates and cups.  Captain Barney,
who was seldom silent for long, was the first to resume conversation.

"What do you cal'late that--that ignoramus there has been tryin' to
do for the last two hours?" he demanded, pointing an accusing fork
at Kohath.  "He's been tryin' to stand up for that Azure Crisp
woman, that's what.  Tryin' to make out that, because she's been
livin' up at Ben Brewster's ever since Noah put to sea or
thereabouts, that gives her an excuse for behavin' as if the crowd
she was brought up with was dirt under her feet.  He lets her shove
him to one side and hand out orders and all he does is touch his
hat and say:  'Thank you, ma'am.  Please kick me again, if it ain't
too much trouble.'  I am ashamed for him, I declare I am."

Mr. Briggs's dignified equanimity was, outwardly at least, quite
unaffected by this outburst.  He swallowed the section of fried
codfish which had been occupying his attention, took a drink of
tea, and turned his gaze upon the peppery ancient at the foot of
the table.

"I never neither asked her to kick me," he said solemnly.  "She
never offered to kick nobody.  Women folks do about everything they
want to nowadays, seems so, but they ain't started in kickin'
people around the post office, I guess.  If you'd only listen once
in a while, instead of bein' so set on doin' all the talkin'
yourself, 'twould be smoother sailin' for all hands."

Captain Barnabas bounced in his chair.

"Who do you think you're slingin' out that to?" he demanded, in hot
indignation.  "You've been cook and roustabout aboard here so long
that you seem to figure you're commodore or somethin'.  I've stood
about all of it I'm goin' to.  D'you understand?"

Kohath buttered a fragment of spiderbread.

"You don't have to stand nothin'," he drawled, calmly.  "If you
don't like the cookin' all you've got to do is say so.  There's
another job waitin' for me any minute I want to take it.  And it
won't be a cook job neither."

"I'LL bet it won't!  What you goin' to tackle next?  Goin' to try
makin' a livin' stuffin' birds, I presume likely.  Remember what
Hannah Perry said about your stuffin' her poll parrot after it
died.  She said she didn't know but 'twould have been better if
she'd been contented to remember it as it was."

This was a dig in a sore spot.  Mr. Briggs had of late been
experimenting in taxidermy.  He had sent two dollars by mail to a
firm which published a book on the subject.  He laid down his knife
and fork.

Captain David, who had been enjoying the squabble, as he had
previously enjoyed hundreds of similar ones, took a hand.

"Here, here!" he ordered.  "What's all this about, anyway?  Waitin'
for supper must have put an edge on your tempers as well as your
appetites.  Skipper, be still.  You too, Kohath.  You don't either
of you mean what you say.  Either one of you would die of
lonesomeness without the other to fight with.  Behave yourselves.
What set you goin', in the first place?"

Both started to explain and, as neither would give way to the
other, the result was more noisy than enlightening.  David Cummings
rapped for order.

"Sshh, shh!" he commanded.  "Heave to, Skipper!  Whatever it was
seems to have happened to Kohath, so let's let him tell it."

Captain Barney sniffed.  "'Twill take him two year and THEN he
won't get anywhere," he vowed. . . .  "Oh, all right!  All--RIGHT!
Never mind me.  It's gettin' so nobody pays any attention to me in
THIS house."

Mr. Briggs began his story.  It seemed a trivial bit of tinder for
such a bonfire as had been blazing all the afternoon.  Kohath had
gone to the post office, after washing the dinner dishes.  He was
standing at the postmaster's window, awaiting his turn for
attention, when Azure Crisp appeared and, without waiting for any
one, had coolly pushed him and one or two others aside, asked for
and obtained the Brewster mail and made a dignified departure.
That was all.

Captain Barney, who had fumed and fidgeted during the cook's
deliberate and wandering recital, broke out with a sputter.

"And--and he stood there and let her do it," he cried, furiously.
"Stood there and let that--that upstart woman shove him out of line
and never opened his mouth.  I wish I'd been there.  She wouldn't
have crowded ME out of the channel, I tell you that.  And here I
was, to home, sittin' waitin' and waitin' for my Item while he was
too meek and mealy-mouthed to stand up for his rights.  Tut, tut,
tut!"

Kohath finished his cup of tea.  "There wasn't no Item there," he
drawled.  "'Tain't due till to-morrow, anyway.  I told you to-day
was Wednesday and you vowed and declared 'twas Thursday.  I offered
to fetch you the almanac and prove it and you wouldn't let me."

The Skipper was a trifle taken aback but he stood to his guns.

"Yes," he retorted, with sarcasm, "and you know perfectly well that
the only almanac in the house was a last year one.  You put this
year's in the fire."

"'Twas the one you handed me to put there.  You said you was sick
of seein' the old one around.  How did I know you'd lost your
spectacles for the ninety-fifth time that day and had got hold of
the new almanac by mistake?  And I could have proved by last year's
just as well.  If--"

Again Captain David interrupted.  "Hush, hush! both of you," he
commanded.  "You've been squabblin' about that almanac for two
months.  Forget it.  There'll be another ready the first of the
year and that isn't so far off.  So Azure was at the post office,
was she?  Humph!  And it was rainin' pitchforks, too.  She is
pretty faithful at her job, I must say.  She's queer and cranky and
all that, but she does try hard to do her duty by Mary Brewster.  I
don't know what Mary would do if it wasn't for her."

This remark was a distinct error in judgment.  It had an effect
which the speaker, from his long experience, should have foreseen.
For hours the Skipper had been voicing detestation of Azure Crisp,
her manner, habits and general characteristics.  And Kohath had
just as stoutly defended her and them.  Now, when a third party
ventured to throw a favorable comment in her direction, Mr. Briggs
promptly changed sides and began to criticize.

"She's a stuck-up upstart, just as Cap'n Barney says," he
proclaimed.  "I presume likely I should have stood up in my boots
and when she tried to push by me I'd ought to have shoved her back
where she belonged.  I would have, too, only I was kind of took by
surprise and didn't have time to think.  When I did it was too
late."

"Ye-es; well, your thinkin' is generally about a week late," was
Captain Barney's ungracious comment.  "Never mind, though," he
added, hastily.  "Better late than never.  Next time you see her
you tell her a few things, Kohath.  I'm waitin' for my chance.  I'm
waitin' to ask her if, as treasurer of the New Church society, I am
to consider that she's through with that society for good and all.
Ever since Annabelle Brewster's time she's been taggin' to First
Church meetin' Sunday mornin's, but for a spell she was pretty
reg'lar with us Friday nights and at socials and so on.  And she
paid in her fifty cents a week same as when she was a professin'
Christian.  Now she ain't paid a cent since February.  What I want
to ask her is if I'm to understand that she's hove religion
overboard and has turned First Church for keeps.  That's what I'm
waitin' to ask."

"Suppose she says she has?" drawled Briggs.  "What then?"

"Then, by the great and holy, I'll have her in a clove hitch.  I'll
really begin to TALK to her then.  Sailin' around rigged up in that
old sealskin cape of Annabelle Brewster's, and talkin' poetry and
gettin' books out of the library and airin' herself all so high and
mighty at lodge meetin' don't fool me any.  I'm too old a bird and
I've been roostin' hereabouts for eighty odd years.  Wrappin' a
secondhand sealskin 'round a sculpin don't change what's inside of
it.  Tut, tut, tut!  SHE makin' believe she's a big bug just
because she washes dishes for those that are!  Why, I've known her
folks forever, as you might say, and there wan't one of 'em that
had more than a quarter to his name at one time--and that one he
owed somebody else.  Why, her own uncle, on her mother's side, old
Zebedee Beasley, I remember him comin' to meetin' Sundays with so
many different kind of patches on his britches that they looked
like a chart of the South Sea Islands.  But he always come, I'll
say that for him.  He didn't try to cover up the patches with any
sealskin capes.  And her husband, Obed Crisp, he's been dead a long
spell, and never amounted to much when he was alive, but he went to
the church where he belonged--when he went anywhere.  And he's
buried where he belongs, too, and that's in the New Church buryin'
ground."

Kohath put in a word.  "I was ashore the day Obed was drownded," he
mused.  "That was of a Sunday.  He wan't to church that day.  He
was off haulin' lobster pots."

"That's because 'twas a couple of days after the Fourth of July and
him and Abram Oaks and some of their gang had had a jug come down
from Boston.  He'd have been to home and to church if he was
sober."

Captain David, who had been calmly eating his supper, was now
pushing back his chair and rising from the table.

"I'll leave you two to dispose of Obed and his wife," he observed,
cheerfully.  "You are good for an hour when you start haulin' Azure
over the coals.  I'm goin' to my desk in the sittin' room.  I've
got some bank matters I want to look over."

The last sentence seemed to remind Mr. Briggs of something.

"Humph!" he grunted, reflectively.  "I heard somethin' down to the
post office to-day, somethin' that had to do with the bank.  Don't
cal'late there was anything in it, but it sounded funny.  There's a
story goin' around town that Allie Jones is givin' up his job there
and is goin' to work in Boston.  It ain't so, is it, Cap'n Dave?"

David frowned.  So the secret, which had been kept surprisingly
well for a Wapatomac secret, was out at last.  He passed his hand
through his hair.  "Who said that?" he asked.

"Olsen Snow was the one that told it.  He works for Mrs. Cap'n
Eleazir Bradley, you know, and he vows he heard her and her
daughter talkin' it over.  'Cordin' to Olsen old Mrs. Eleazir was
terrible interested.  Seems she's got a nephew over to Bayport
who'd like first-rate to have Allie's place when he quits.  Olsen,
he gathered from what he heard that Mrs. Cap'n Eleazir wan't by no
means happy about the prospects.  She said somethin' to the effect
that Cap'n Donald--"

"Cap'n Fred Donald, the Ostable one?" broke in Captain Barney,
eagerly curious.

"Um-hum.  That's the one.  She said that Cap'n Fred had a cousin he
was tryin' to get the job for and 'twas nip and tuck who'd win out.
I told 'em I didn't believe there was a word of truth in it because
you'd never mentioned it to home here.  I was right, wan't I?"

Captain David did not answer the question.  "Did Snow say any
more?" he inquired.

"Not much.  Seems to me he did say Mrs. Eleazir said that she
didn't know but that, if she was sartin her nephew couldn't get the
place, she'd be willin' to use her influence for almost anybody
else provided 'twan't the one Donald wanted.  Olsen, he judged that
with her 'twas anything to beat Cap'n Fred."

Captain Barney nodded.  "The Bradleys and Donalds haven't more than
hardly spoke to each other for seven or eight year," he declared.
"There was a row betwixt 'em way back afore Cap'n Eleazir died.
Somethin' about church conference, seems to me 'twas--or about a
vessel they owned shares in together--or about a cow one of 'em
sold the other.  No, wait a minute.  'Twas on account of the
Donalds sittin' on the platform at the Ostable town hall one Cattle
Show Day, when the Governor was makin' a speech, and the Bradleys
havin' to be down on the floor with the rest of the crowd.  That's
what started it.  I knew 'twas somethin'."

Captain David left his grandfather and Mr. Briggs pulling to pieces
the family histories of the aristocratic Bradleys and Donalds and,
going into the sitting room, closed the door behind him and sat
down at his desk.  There were papers on that desk which needed
attention, but he did not touch them.  Instead he sat there,
puffing moodily at a cigar and thinking--thinking.  What he had
just heard made him regret more than ever the unfortunate slip
which had betrayed to Mary Brewster his knowledge of the bank's
secret.  Now the secret was town property.  Every one would be
talking of it.  A dozen new entries would be in the race.  And each
additional one made her choice less likely.

He believed he understood the true reason behind her appeal to him
for help.  She had, in spite of his counsel to the contrary, bought
the Boroda stock.  How much she had bought, how greatly her income
might be depleted, he did not know.  But he knew her, and he was
certain that the situation must indeed be desperate which forced
Captain Benjamin Brewster's daughter to confession of her poverty
and a willingness to accept a salaried position in the town where
the Brewsters had received homage and ruled in dignity for a
hundred and fifty years.

He would have done his utmost to help her, anyway.  Now that he had
been so rash as to offer her more or less definite encouragement,
he must, somehow or other, justify it.  She had called him her
"sheet anchor."  That anchor, it seemed to him, was resting on a
muddy bottom.  How on earth could he make it hold?

He thought and planned, but each plan presented unsurmountable
difficulties.  In his thinking, however, he forgot one very
important factor, namely, that others also were thinking.  And at
that moment one of the thinkers knocked at the Cummings door.

He did not hear the knock but Mr. Briggs did and, as Captain David
impatiently threw aside the stump of one cigar and reached for a
fresh one, Kohath tiptoed into the sitting room.

David looked up.  "Well, what is it?" he asked, briskly.  "Don't
bother me unless it is important."

Mr. Briggs' face was proof of the importance.

"Say," he whispered, bending down to his employer's ear, "who do
you cal'late is here, come to see you?  They say when you talk
about angels you're liable to hear their wings flop.  I believe it
now."

Before he could say more voices in the dining room became
distinctly audible.  The voice of Captain Barnabas and another.

"Well, well, well!" Captain Barney vowed; "this is a surprise, sure
enough.  Didn't expect to see you in these latitudes--not to-night,
anyhow.  Take off your things, won't you?  Blowin' consider'ble,
ain't it?"

"Blowing a hurricane," was the brusque reply.  "Coming across that
open stretch by Goulds' I thought the damned buggy would blow out
of the road."

Captain David grinned.  "Is that your angel?" he inquired, dryly.

The sarcasm slid by Kohath without touching him.  "Uh-hum," he
said, solemnly.  "That's him.  Ain't it queer now that, right while
me and the Skipper was talkin' about him out there in the kitchen,
he should come knockin' at the door?  Ain't it, now?  Eh?"

"I can tell you better when I know who it is."

"Eh?  I thought I told you.  It's Cap'n Fred Donald himself.  Drove
all the way over from Ostable, he has.  I don't cal'late he's been
in this house since that time when he come to coax you to be
president of the bank.  And now, to-night, the very minute when we
was talkin' about him, here he shows up.  It's enough to make a
body believe in signs, I declare if it ain't."

David had risen to his feet.  "Cap'n Fred!" he repeated.  "What. . . .
Humph!"

For the second time that day Kohath was pushed unceremoniously to
one side.  Cummings strode to the door of the dining room and
opened it.

"Why, good evenin', Cap'n," he hailed, heartily.  "Glad to see you.
Come in, come in."

The visitor accepted the invitation.  He was square-shouldered,
white-bearded, red-faced and blue-eyed.  He walked with dignity and
he spoke with authority.  Captain Frederick Donald had "bossed" his
crews on the old square-riggers and, after retiring from the sea,
had continued to boss his family and a majority of the residents of
Ostable.  He was a man of wealth, position and influence in the
county, and no one knew it better than he did.

"Sit down, sit down, Cap'n," urged David.  "That's all, Kohath.
Shut the door when you go out."

Mr. Briggs prepared to obey orders though with evident reluctance.

"You won't want the Skipper--Cap'n Barney, I mean--you won't want
him neither, will you?" he asked, hopefully.

"I guess not."

Donald settled the question.  "No, we won't," he said, with
decision.  "I've got to talk business with Dave."

Kohath nodded.  "All right," he answered, with satisfaction.  "I'll
tell him you don't want him."

He departed to carry the glad news to the Skipper, who was waiting
just at the other side of the door.  The powwow which ensued died
away in the direction of the kitchen.  Captain David turned to his
caller.  "Make yourself comfortable, Cap'n," he said.  "Here!  Have
a cigar."

Donald accepted the cigar.  While he was lighting it Cummings
regarded him thoughtfully.  The pompous old magnate had driven the
twelve miles from Ostable through the gale and at night, to talk
business with him.  There was but one business they had in common,
that pertaining to the bank.  And David could conjecture only one
phase of that which was of immediate importance.  He leaned back in
his desk chair, outwardly casual and serene, but inwardly alert and
watchful.  He did not offer to begin conversation; he waited for
his visitor to do that.

Captain Frederick Donald appeared to find it hard to begin.  He
puffed at the cigar, crossed and uncrossed his sturdy legs,
scowled, and then leaned forward.

"See here, Dave," he said, gruffly.  "That job down at the bank.
Has anybody said anything to you about that to-day, or yesterday?"

Cummings thought it over.  "Jones was speakin' of it this noon," he
replied.  "He says he can't stay more than another week.  And Hall
was asking about it, too."

An impatient movement of the Donald hand.  "I don't mean them; I
mean folks outside the bank."

"Well, of course, Mrs. Cap'n Bradley is at me every chance she
gets.  She's just as set on gettin' her nephew in as she ever was."

"I don't mean her, either.  Somehow or other it's getting to be
known that Jones is leaving us.  It has got as far as Ostable.  I
heard it there to-day."

"Did you?  Pshaw!"

"Yes, I did.  And, if they know it there, it is dead sure that all
Wapatomac knows it.  Of course you realize what that will mean.  It
means that we shall have a dozen applications by to-morrow night.
I'm surprised they haven't come to you already."

"Um-hum. . . .  Well, if the news is out, so am I.  Lots of young
fellows would like to work in the bank.  It isn't such a big job,
but they figure, I suppose, that, just as it did with young Jones,
it may lead to somethin' better."

"Yes.  yes," fretfully.  "Well, that troubles me a little bit.  To
tell you the truth, Cummings, getting that place for my wife's
cousin had come to be a--a sort of matter of principle with me.  It
isn't the place itself.  He can find another one, or I can find one
for him.  That isn't it.  It is just because--well, just because I
SAID he should have it.  And," his voice rising, "I have as much
right to have my way as anybody else has. . . .  Humph!  You seem
to think that is funny.  What are you laughing at?"

Captain David was not laughing, exactly.  There was a suspicion of
a smile at the corners of his lips, however, and a glint of humor
in his eyes.  He hastened to smooth his caller's ruffled feathers.

"I'm sorry, Cap'n Fred," he said.  "And I understand just how you
feel.  There is nothin' funny about that.  Only, you see, as you
were talkin' it came across my mind that you were sayin' almost
exactly the same thing that Mrs. Cap'n Bradley said to me yesterday
noon.  She was in to see me and she said--odd, too, she should say
it in almost the same words--that gettin' that bank job for her
nephew Jim Henry had come to be almost a matter of principle with
her.  It wasn't the job itself, she told me; it was because she had
told him he should have it."

The Donald chin beard quivered and the Donald eye flashed.

"Oh, did she!" he sneered.  "Is that so!  Well, I hope you asked
her who made it her business to give orders.  What has she got to
do with that bank, I want to know?"

Cummings shrugged.  "She is one of our heaviest depositors," he
said, "and she owns a lot of our stock.  And her husband, Cap'n
Eleazir, was president for eight years; was president when he
died."

"Well, what of that?  She didn't take his place, did she?  You're
president now, aren't you?"

"Ye-es.  But her influence made me president--hers and yours,
Cap'n.  She wouldn't let me forget that, even if I wanted to."

Captain Donald's teeth clenched.  He lifted the hand holding the
cigar.

"See here, Cummings," he demanded.  "Does that mean you're getting
ready to take her side against mine?  Is that what it means?"

David shook his head.  "You know it doesn't, Cap'n Fred," he
answered.  "All through this rumpus over Jones's place I've tried
to play fair.  The board has split right in the middle.  Three of
the directors, Small and Cahoon and yourself, have been with you
and your cousin.  But the other three, Colton and Baker and
Freeman, have stood out for young Henry.  You know as well as I do
whose influence is behind them."

Donald did know it.  "Sam Freeman is her brother-in-law," he
growled.  "She's worked on him and he's worked on the others.  If
it hadn't been for that we could have picked a new bookkeeper
without the least bit of trouble.  A fine state of affairs, when a
fifteen-dollar-a-week understrapper's job gets to interfering with
the business of an institution like the Wapatomac National Bank.
And now the whole county is going to hear about it.  A ridiculous
mess, I call it."

Cummings nodded agreement.  "That's what I've called it all along,"
he said.

"Humph!  Well, you could have ended it any minute you wanted to.
All you had to do was cast the deciding vote."

"For you and your wife's cousin, you mean?"

"Certain."

David laughed.  "Emma Bradley says I could have ended it by votin'
for her nephew," he observed.  "No, thank you, Cap'n Fred.  No,
sir, I've stood by and kept my hands off.  I had the bank to think
of.  As I see it, that's what you made me president for."

Ostable's great man fidgeted gloomily in his chair.

"Then you won't vote for my man?" he asked.

"Can't.  Any more than I can vote for the Bradley nephew."

"Humph!  Well, Small and Colton will stick it through with me, I
can tell you that."

"Mrs. Cap'n Eleazir says her crowd will stick by her. . . .  Now,
don't blame me, Cap'n Donald.  All I'm tryin' to do is keep the
Wapatomac National Bank in the middle of the channel.  Might as
well be plain about it.  While I'm president I won't have a family
grudge runnin' it on the rocks.  It ain't a question of the fitness
of your man or the other one.  So far as that goes, either could
fill the bill, I don't doubt.  But I know--yes, and you know--that
neither one would ever satisfy the opposition.  And board meetin'
every Saturday would be a cat and dog fight.  And as for us poor
devils IN the bank--particularly the assistant bookkeeper--we'd
have happy days, wouldn't we.  Come now, that's sense, isn't it?"

Donald did not attempt denial.  He chewed the end of his cigar and
muttered something profane behind it.

"Then how long do you think this is likely to go on?" he demanded,
angrily.

"Forever, I guess likely.  I don't see any end; do you?"

Captain Frederick swore again.  He rose and paced back and forth,
his hands jammed in his trousers' pockets.  Suddenly he stopped and
turned.

"Cummings," he said, "it can't go on--it's got to stop somehow.  As
I told you when I first got here, now that Jones or somebody has
let the cat out of the bag, we'll be pestered to death.  Every
living soul that has two dollars in that bank will be for takin'
sides.  The row won't be about a bookkeeper any longer; it won't be
just a bank row, it will be a town row.  Yes, half the county will
be in it.  People will be withdrawing their accounts and taking 'em
over to the Harniss bank, and I don't know what all.  We can't have
that.  It's got to stop, somehow."

"Seems so to me.  But then, it's seemed so to me from the
beginnin'."

"How can it be stopped?  I'll let the bank go plumb to the devil
before I'll vote for any relation of Emma Bradley's."

"Sure I understand.  Well, the Bradleys say the same thing--or what
amounts to it--on the opposite side.  And there we are, abreast the
same buoy as we started from."

The visitor again crossed from the chair to the window and back
again.  And once more he paused.

"I know how it MIGHT be stopped," he growled, after a moment's
hesitation.  "There's just one who could stop it before any
outsiders took a hand.  That is you, Dave Cummings. . . .  No, no,
wait! hear me through.  Suppose at next Saturday's meetin', you
told the board you had a candidate yourself.  Somebody you knew was
all right and that hadn't anything to do with either me or that
condemned Bradley woman.  Somebody whose name had never been
mentioned.  Maybe--I say maybe--some of us would be willin' to vote
for that one.  There's a chance in that, isn't there?"

This was what David Cummings had been waiting for.  During this
dialogue and while Captain Donald had been speaking, he had been
wondering, guessing, trying to surmise the real reason for the
call.  He was sure that the Ostable magnate had not come merely to
urge that he vote for his relative.  They had discussed that matter
over and over again and each time he had pleasantly but flatly
refused to take either side in the dispute.  He had shown no marked
surprise at the condescension of a Donald in coming to the house of
a Cummings, instead of peremptorily summoning the latter to his
own.  He had asked no questions, evinced no curiosity.  He had
waited and listened.  And now that his unspoken question was
answered, and answered precisely as he could have wished, he was
outwardly just as calm and unmoved.  In fact, he received the
suggestion with hesitation.

"Hum--why, yes," he murmured, as if in doubtful consideration of a
new and novel idea.  "Why--er--yes.  Yes, I presume likely that
might settle it, if it worked out that way.  What have you got in
mind, Cap'n Fred?  Somebody else you are thinkin' of proposin'?"

Donald impatiently shook his head.  "Of course I haven't," he
snapped.  "In the first place I don't publicly back down when I
start out to put a thing through, and in the second there would be
nothing gained by my changing candidates.  All I would have to do
was say I was in favor of--well, no matter who--and Freeman and
Josh Colton and Eben Baker would vote no so quick your head would
swim.  It isn't a question with them of getting the right
bookkeeper, it's a question of seeing that _I_ don't get what I'm
after. . . .  No, no," bending forward to point a finger at the
Cummings nose, "you are the only one who can handle this.  YOU.  Do
you know of some young chap--a decent one, of course--who wants
that place and could do the work?  If you do I'll--well, by George,
I'll cast my vote for him!  There!"

Captain David was tilting slowly back and forth in the desk chair.
He was, seemingly, lost in thought.  The peppery gentleman from
Ostable grew tired of waiting.

"Come, come!" he ordered.  "You heard me, didn't you?  Say
something."

"Eh?  Oh, yes, Cap'n, I heard you.  That's all right; your vote
would help--provided I could manage to think of a good party for
the place.  But one vote--or two--wouldn't do it."

"Four would.  Seth Cahoon and Small will vote as I tell 'em to.
They, with me, and you--voting for your own nominee, of course--
would make a majority.  Then Emma Bradley's pet poodle dogs could
howl or keep still, just as they liked."

"Ye-es.  But we'd have to be careful who that new bookkeeper was or
they'd keep on howlin' all winter.  If we--you and I, I mean--could
only think of JUST the right one."

"That ought to be easy enough.  Lord A'mighty!" in huge disgust.
"You talk as if I'd asked you to pick out a Senator or something."

"You have asked me to find a bookkeeper that will satisfy all
hands.  That would have been easy enough before this squabble got
goin'.  It isn't so easy now. . . .  Humph! . . .  Well, I
declare! . . .  I wonder."

"What do you wonder.  You've thought of somebody; I can see that.
Who is it?"

"It just came to me that--But no, it isn't possible."

"How do you know it isn't?  What are you talking about?"

Captain David was regarding him earnestly but doubtfully.  He
appeared to be on the point of offering a suggestion, but fearful
that it might be too ridiculous for consideration.

"Humph!" he mused.  "I know you'll think I'm crazy, but--Well, here
goes!  Cap'n Donald, what would you say to hirin' a girl--a woman--
for that job of Allie Jones's?"

Donald said nothing immediately.  He stared in incredulous
amazement.  Cummings did not wait; he hurried on.

"It just came to me," he confided, "that a little while ago--this
week, as a matter of fact--a woman right here in this town, a
mighty fine, smart able woman from one of the best families in
Wapatomac, told me that she had made up her mind to take some sort
of position where she could do somethin' to keep her interested--
yes, and earn a little extra pin money for herself.  She knows
somethin' of bookkeepin'; she isn't any relation of Emma Bradley's;
she's respected by everybody and I believe she would be a real help
to the bank in a lot of ways, provided--provided, of course, she
could be coaxed into comin' there.  If she wasn't a woman--if she
was a man--I should say right off:  'Here's the very one!'  But, as
she IS a woman, why--well, I don't how you and the rest of the
board might feel.  Personally, I haven't any prejudice.  Women are
workin' everywhere nowadays and just because we've never had one in
the bank is no reason why we shouldn't, as I look at it.  I--"

But his caller had been quiet long enough.  He broke in.

"What the devil is all this?" he demanded.  "Who is this woman, for
heaven's sake?"

Cummings leaned forward.  "Now I am goin' to surprise you," he
declared.  "She is Mary Brewster.  That's who she is."

There was no doubt of the surprise.  Captain Frederick Donald
stared, opened his mouth, choked, and then fulfilled his host's
prophecy.

"Mary Brewster!" he gasped.  "Mary BREWSTER!  Ben Brewster's girl!
Lookin' for a JOB?  You're crazy as a loon."

"Um-hum.  That's what I expected.  Now you listen, Cap'n Fred.  Sit
down in that chair again and listen.  I'll tell you all about it."

He proceeded to tell, by no means all, but as much as he deemed
advisable.  He said nothing of Mary's "desperation," her actual
need of money, he breathed not a word concerning what he was
convinced was the cause of that need, the unfortunate speculation
in Boroda Copper.  He stressed her loneliness, "all alone in that
big house with nothing to take up her mind"; he praised her
ability, her character, her family and social position.  "Her
friends are the best people in Wapatomac and Bayport and Ostable
and everywhere.  She's hand and glove with the summer crowd.  I
tell you, Cap'n Fred, havin' her in the bank--provided, as I say,
we could coax her to work there--would be a fine thing for that
bank."

He went on and on.  He talked with an earnestness which brought the
perspiration to his forehead.  But, with it all, he was careful not
to express any personal interest.  "And," he said, in conclusion,
"of course she is a woman.  And there's bound to be talk at our
pickin' a woman for that job.  What do you think, Cap'n?"

Captain Donald slapped his knee.

"I'm for it," he declared.  "I don't believe she'll take the place.
I believe she was lonesome and blue and discontented and said a
whole lot more than she really meant.  But if she did mean it and
will come to work in the bank I'm for her.  Ben Brewster was a good
fellow.  Havin' a Brewster to help take care of our depositors'
accounts won't do us a bit of harm.  And," he added, with a
triumphant chuckle, "your proposing her for the place will put the
Bradley crowd in a hole.  The Bradleys and the Brewsters have
always been thick as thieves--no thicker, of course, than they were
with my family--but close, just the same.  It will be fun to watch
Sam Freeman's face when you name her.  Ho, ho!  I wonder what he'll
say--and do.  If he and Colton and Baker vote against her--why,
that will put them and that Bradley woman in bad with some of their
best friends.  Ho, ho!  Heave ahead, Dave!  Heave ahead!  It will
be the best joke in ten years.  As for the town talk--well, I
shan't let that get in the way.  If Mary can stand it I guess the
bank can."

They parted at the door.  "Then it's settled, is it?" whispered
Cummings.  "I am to see Mary and do my best to make her promise to
come.  If she says yes, I'll propose her name at Saturday mornin's
meetin' and I can count on you and Small and Cahoon votin' for
her?"

"Sure as you live!  Look here," rather anxiously, "do you suppose
you can make her say yes?  Do you think I'd better go and see her
myself?"

"No, no," hastily, "I wouldn't do that.  She--well, I was the one
she talked to about her affairs and perhaps it might be better if I
talked this time.  She's proud and--well, sensitive, I imagine.
And--you understand?"

"Yes.  Certain.  Guess you're right, Cummings.  I wish you luck.
And I DO want to see Sam Freeman's face Saturday morning.  Ho, ho!"

David refused to answer the eager questions of his grandfather and
Mr. Briggs.  "Just bank affairs, that's all," he told them.  He
went to his room immediately.  After the office of D. Cummings &
Co. had closed the following afternoon he walked up the hill and
turned the handle of the bell attached to the pure Colonial front
door of the Bradley residence.  He was admitted to the Bradley
parlor where the widow and daughter of the late Captain Eleazir
received him with condescending graciousness.  And in that parlor
he remained for a full hour.  He was weary but smiling when he
closed the front gate behind him.

And, Sunday morning, just before church time, he called again at
the Brewster house.  Mary listened in amazement to what he had to
tell.

"Of course," he said, when his surprising story ended, "I wasn't
certain that you would be willin' to take the place.  The wages
aren't very large, but they are somethin', and at any rate the
work, although it isn't hard, will keep you fairly busy.  We all
hope you will come to the bank.  Will you?"

She drew a long breath.  "Of course I will," she said.  "Indeed and
indeed I will."

"There's bound to be talk, you know.  You're a Brewster."

"Oh, please!  We went through all that the other evening.  If you
and--and the others really want me I will take the place and try
awfully hard to keep it.  I can't tell you, Captain Cummings, how
grateful I am.  I can't even try--now. . . .  But--but it's so--so
wonderful I can hardly believe it.  You say you just proposed my
name and all the directors--every one of them--voted for me.  It
was unanimous?"

"That's it.  Unanimous."

"Well, I don't see why.  You just told them I wanted it and they
all said yes.  It was as simple as that."

David Cummings nodded.  She could not see his face, for he had
turned to look at the portrait of great-grandfather Brewster, but
his tone was convincing.  "Yes," he agreed, solemnly.  "Just as
simple as that."




CHAPTER IV


It was arranged.  Mary was to report at the bank, ready for work,
on Wednesday morning.  Young Jones, the retiring bookkeeper, had
agreed to remain until the end of the week, and, as Captain
Cummings said, help her in "learning the ropes."  She stood at the
window, watching her caller walk briskly away from the Brewster
gate and Mrs. Crisp entering the sitting room found her standing
there.

Azure was gowned in her "go to meeting" regalia, purple silk,
breastpin, sealskin cape, black transformation and all.

"Well there!" she exclaimed, snappishly.  "He's gone at last, has
he.  I was just on the point of marchin' in here to ask if you'd
decided not to go to church this mornin'.  I thought maybe even
Barney Cummings's grandson might catch on to a hint like that.
Nice time to make calls, Sunday forenoon!  This is the second time
in four days that he's been here.  WHAT in the world is he comin'
for?"

Mary hesitated.  She realized that Azure must be told the truth,
but she could not bear to tell it then.  There would be a scene,
and she did not feel equal to the crisis.  She would wait until
later.

"I'll be ready in a jiffy, Azure," she said.  "You needn't wait."

"Wait!  Course I'll wait.  If I've waited all this time I cal'late
another five minutes won't hurt me.  But do tell me; what is he
pesterin' you about?"

"Oh, just what I said, a business matter."

She hurried to get her coat and hat, leaving Mrs. Crisp to call
after her that any one who didn't know better than to come to talk
business on a Sunday mornin' just at meetin' time was not fit to be
president of a hencoop, let alone a bank.

During the walk to church Mary's conscience was troubling her.  She
must tell Azure, of course, but, oh dear, how she dreaded it.
Twice during their progress she was on the point of breaking the
news, but each time her resolution failed.  They were a few minutes
late and the opening hymn was being sung as they entered the
Stately portals of the old First Church.

"Why don't you sit with me this morning, Azure?" she whispered at
the door.  "You might just as well."

But Azure was proud of possessing a sense of fitness.

"Sit with you!" she whispered in return.  "Likely, ain't it.  I get
enough digs already from New Church folks about toadyin' to riches.
If I should take to sittin' way up front along with you and right
next to Sam Freeman and the Bradleys and all their kind, I'd never
hear the last of it.  I'll sit in back where I always do."

But this particular morning the rear seats were crowded.  Old Mr.
Sampson, the minister, had exchanged pulpits for that Sunday with
the new divine from Bayport.  The latter was reputed to be a "smart
preacher," and suspected of certain heresies, and visitors, hoping
for sensation, were present from West Wapatomac and Denboro, even
as far away as Bayport.  Elkanah Bearse, the sexton, who met them
at the door, was troubled.

"I declare, Mrs. Crisp," he confided, "I don't know where I can
squeeze you in.  Every pew that doesn't belong to somebody is chock
full."

Mary solved the difficulty.  "She must sit with me," she said,
firmly.  "Come, Azure, don't stop to argue.  They are singing the
last verse now."

She led the way up the aisle and Bearse, seizing the Crisp arm,
towed its owner reluctantly in his wake.  The Brewster pew, rented
and occupied by Brewsters since the church was built, was in the
very front row.  It was empty, of course.  An uninvited outsider,
daring to press its sacred cushions, would indeed have been sitting
in the seat of the scornful.  The sexton opened its door and Mary
entered.  She sat at the farther end.  Azure, her genteel Sabbath
composure for once completely wrecked, sat rigidly upright at the
opposite end, staring straight ahead, her black lace mits clutching
each other and her cheeks reddening under the stares which she knew
were fixed upon her.

Mary, although not for the same reason, was also quite aware of the
stares.  She felt, rather than saw, Captain Samuel Freeman in the
pew at her right, lean forward to look at her.  She heard the
rustle which accompanied Mrs. Freeman's turning to look.  She knew
that, behind her, Mrs. Captain Eleazir Bradley and Miss Elvira
Bradley were gazing at the back of her neck.  When they whispered
she was certain they whispered about her.  The Coltons and the
Cahoons and the Bakers were members of that church and were all
present that morning.  They all knew of her acceptance of the
bookkeeper's position at the bank and, although as directors the
men had voted for her, she could easily guess the remarks made at
their tables and in their sitting rooms by them and the members of
their families.  They were all wondering at her "comedown" in the
world and guessing at its cause.  And, being a woman of imagination,
she could picture each one of them as demanding, "WHAT would Captain
Ben or his wife say if they were alive?"  And by Wednesday--oh, yes,
sooner than that--all Wapatomac, high and low, would be saying the
same thing.

She was not ashamed of her determination to earn a living.  She had
a right to do so if she wished.  It was solely her affair.  But all
the philosophy in the world, all the scornful disdain of snobbery
in the world, were not sufficient to salve the irritation caused by
the certainty that she was being talked about, would soon be talked
about by everybody; and that those who had hitherto taken the
greatest pains to cultivate and maintain her friendship would now
be her sharpest critics, would invent the meanest excuses for her
action.

By the time the service began, however, her shoulders were as
straight as Azure's.  Let them talk.  Friendships dependent upon
such ridiculous distinctions were better lost than kept.  As the
congregation rose to sing the final hymn she looked calmly about
her and when eyes in adjoining pews met hers it was not hers that
turned away.

After the benediction her walk through the crowded aisle to the
outer door was not in the least hurried.  Azure had fled at the
moment the minister pronounced the closing amen.  Mary's exit was
even more deliberate than usual.  She bowed here and there and when
Mrs. Bradley extended a hand she took it as casually as if she had
no inkling of the thoughts beneath its owner's flowered bonnet.

Mrs. Captain Eleazir bent toward her.

"My dear child," murmured Mrs. Bradley, "how do you do?  You look
tired--and no wonder.  We are all so anxious about you."

Mary turned.  "Anxious?" she repeated.  "About me?  Why?"

The lady's black kid glove patted the hand its mate was holding.
"You have surprised us all so much," she whispered.  "We can't
imagine why you do it, but no doubt you have good reasons.  Only--
only are you SURE you are not making a mistake?"

"Mistake? . . .  Oh, I see!  You mean my going to work in the bank.
No indeed," with a beaming smile.  "If you only knew how gloriously
happy it makes me to think that, at last, I am really going to do
something worth while, instead of sitting alone and useless there
at home, you wouldn't speak of mistakes.  I think I am to be
congratulated, Mrs. Bradley."

Their hands fell apart.  The widow of the late and great Captain
Eleazir seemed to be at a loss for words.

"Well!" she gasped.  "Well, I--I am sure I am glad to hear that you
feel that way.  I hope you will always feel so.  Of course Elvira
and I, being such OLD friends, will call upon you soon and--and
perhaps then you can tell us more about how you came to--to do it."

Mary nodded.  "Yes, do call," she said, heartily.  "Only you must
come on an evening or Sunday, because I shall be busy at the bank
all the rest of the time.  Thank you so much for your interest."

Captain Sam Freeman was pushing his way toward her, but she managed
to avoid him, as well as Mrs. Baker, who was edging over from the
other direction, and to escape to the outer air.  There she found
Azure, waiting for her at the foot of the steps.

They walked in silence for a little way.  Then, Mrs. Crisp, whose
face was a study in crimson, broke out with the protest she had
kept to herself so long.

"Mary Brewster," she sputtered, "don't you ever, EVER coax me into
sittin' in that pew with you again.  I could choke that dodderin'
old Elkanah Bearse for draggin' me up that aisle like a calf on the
end of a rope.  Couldn't you tell how every soul in that meetin'
house was starin' at me all through the service?  They never took
their eyes off me.  I wouldn't turn to see 'em do it--I wouldn't
give 'em that satisfaction--but I could FEEL 'em."

Mary shook her head.  "Don't be foolish, Azure," she said.  "There
is no reason in the world why you shouldn't sit with me.  Besides,"
with a half smile, "I don't think they were looking as much at you
as at me."

Azure, naturally, misunderstood.  "And no wonder," she declared.
"They were thinkin' that you must be crazy to let me sit there.  I
am just as good as any one of 'em and you don't catch me belittlin'
myself when I'm where I belong.  But I don't belong in a front pew
in the First Church of Wapatomac and neither does anybody else
except them that has paid rent for those pews for a hundred year or
so.  There's such a thing as doin' what you're born to do.  You and
Emma Bradley and the rest was born to one thing, Mary Brewster, and
I was born to another.  Stay where you do belong, that's my motto."

Mary did not answer.  Nor did she reveal to Azure during their
homeward walk the startling news which, sooner or later, must be
told.  She judged the present moment inopportune and once more the
revelation was postponed.

Nor was it made that day.  All the afternoon Azure was busy in the
kitchen or in her room upstairs.  Mary could not imagine what she
might be doing, but at supper time her question was answered.
Azure announced she had been "scrabblin' around" in her trunks in
the attic trying to find suitable contributions for the "missionary
box" which the Ladies' Society of the New Church were to pack at
the church vestry the afternoon of the next day--Monday.

"I don't know how many have asked me if I wasn't goin' to give
anything to that box," she said, "and every time I've said I didn't
know whether I was or not.  You see," she added, sitting down on
the haircloth sofa, and looking really embarrassed, a state in
which, with the exception of her enforced sojourn in the Brewster
pew that very morning, Mary had seldom seen her, "you see," she
went on, "I--I'm in a kind of queer place when it comes to
anybody's askin' what society I belong to.  I was brought up New
Church, of course, and Obed--my husband as was--he was New Church,
too, when he could spare time to be anything.  But while your
mother was alive, Mary, long towards her last years she kind of got
me into the habit of 'tendin' mornin' meetin' at the First Church.
I do like to hear a sermon that satisfies my intellects.  If you've
got intellects use 'em, _I_ say."

She paused, evidently expecting favorable comment on this
statement.  Mary gratified the desire.

"Certainly, Azure.  Yes, of course," she agreed, absently.

"Yes.  Well, that's why I go to First Church Sunday mornin's.  But
Obed, when he was alive, he was a great New Churcher.  He did just
love to 'tend Friday night experience meetin's and get himself all
worked up and holler 'Amen' and 'Glory' and sing and carry on and--
and all like that.  He got an awful sight of satisfaction out of
it, seemed so, poor soul.  So I always used to go with him.  And,"
more reluctantly, "of course all my own folks have been New
Meetin'house from the first.  That's why I've kept up my
subscription down there, paid my fifty cents a week regular.  Well,
lately I've kind of let that slide and now I'm commencin' to hear
about it.  Every time I meet that dratted old Cap'n Barney or some
of the rest of 'em I get a dig about goin' back on my own crowd.
And now, after this mornin', when I was ninny enough to let you and
Elkanah Bearse shoo me up that aisle to your pew, it'll be worse
than ever.  No use my vowin' and declarin' I didn't want to sit
there.  That won't do any good."

She paused again.  Mary was silent.  She had heard but little of
this long speech of self-justification.  Azure fidgeted on the
sofa.

"Of course," she went on, "I don't really care a mite about what
they say, only--only--you know how 'tis, Mary.  It ain't comfortin'
to know folks are whisperin' about you behind your back, even if
you don't care if they do.  You know that, don't you?"

Mary nodded in complete agreement.

"I know, Azure," she said, soberly.

"Um-hum.  Well, that's why I thought maybe 'twould be a good idea
if I did give somethin' to that missionary box.  Yes, and be on
hand while 'twas bein' packed.  If I'm there," with a toss of the
head, "they won't talk about me, for I'll get there so early they
won't have a chance.  Do you suppose you can get along without me
to-morrow afternoon, Mary?"

"Why, of course, Azure.  And perhaps I can find some things of my
own, or mother's, that will do for the box."

Mrs. Crisp was pleased.  She rose from the sofa, once more the
complete picture of gentility.

"That'll be just elegant," she gushed.  "And," with another relapse
into naturalness, "I do want to see what Barney Cummin's fetches
for that box.  He used to go whalin' when he was a young man and if
anybody ever was down on missionaries it's him.  He's one of the
head New Churchers so he'll have to give somethin', but I bet you
'twill come hard as pullin' teeth."

Mary retired early and the next forenoon she and Azure spent in
selecting contributions for the missionary box.  Mrs. Crisp,
heavily laden, departed shortly after dinner for the New Church
vestry in a vehicle which her mistress had insisted upon providing
from the local livery stable.  Mary, as she heard the door close,
felt another pang of conscience.  She had not yet told her faithful
retainer of the great change which Wednesday morning was to bring
to that household.

Azure was in earnest when she announced her determination to arrive
at the vestry sufficiently early to head off caustic comment
concerning her supposed desertion from the church of her fathers.
The dinner dishes, which she insisted upon washing, detained her
however, and there were already half a dozen laborers in the
vineyard when she entered the door, followed by the youth from the
livery stable who was bearing the unwieldy bundle containing her,
and Mary's, donations.  Upon two pine tables were heaped the
articles so far sent in and two more were ready for those to come.
Azure, quite conscious of the grandeur attending her entrance with
a servitor, pointed to one of these.

"You can put it down there, Enoch," she directed.  "That is, unless
that table is bein' saved for somethin' special."

Enoch did not wait to learn whether it was or not.  He deposited
the huge bundle upon the table.

"There!" he grunted, straightening his shoulders.  "I HOPE my back
ain't broke, but I guess likely 'tis.  What in time is in that
thing, Azure?  Couple of whales?"

Mrs. Crisp did not deign a reply.  "You can go now," she said,
loftily.  "Miss Brewster paid you.  I saw her."

Enoch rubbed his right shoulder.  "She give me thirty-five cents,"
he admitted.  "You can give me another quarter, if you want to.
It'll come in handy for doctors' bills."

Azure scornfully turned her back.  Enoch was not in the least
abashed.

"It ought to be worth that to you," he observed, with a wink at the
assembly.  "You don't get a chance to ride in a carriage every day,
with a good-lookin' fellow like me to pilot you. . . .  Hello
there, Elsie!" addressing one of the younger members of the group.
"How are you these days?  I'm drivin' over to Bayport to-morrow.
Want to go along?  Get good ice creams over there.  Remember them
we had the last time?  Eh?"

Elsie, judging by her sudden change of color, remembered perfectly.
The expression upon the face of Mrs. Noah Oaks, her mother, was
quite different.  Mrs. Oaks had that moment learned of the Bayport
excursion.  Take it altogether, Mrs. Crisp's impressive entrance
was rather spoiled.

"You needn't come back for me," she said, tartly.  "I shan't want
you."

"Wasn't cal'latin' to," retorted the unimpressed Enoch.  He went
out whistling.  Azure removed her bonnet and the sealskin cape.
When she turned it seemed to her that there was a peculiar air of
restraint evidenced by those present.  The moment she came in she
had been conscious of it.  Before opening the door she had heard an
animated hum of conversation.  The instant she crossed the
threshold it had ceased.  And even now it was not resumed.  They
were all looking at her and apparently waiting for her to speak.
But when she looked at them they looked away.  She voiced her
feelings.

"Well!" she exclaimed.  "What on earth is the matter?  Why doesn't
somebody say somethin'?  What are you all so fussed up and solemn
about?  Is somebody dead; somebody I ain't heard about?"

They all spoke then and together.  No, indeed!  No one was dead.
There was nothing the matter.  They were SO glad to have her there
with them.  Azure believed she understood.

"I see," she said, rather sharply.  "You didn't expect me, I
suppose.  Barney Cummings told you I was through with this society
for good and all, I shouldn't wonder.  Humph!  It's a dreadful
thing to get so old that your mind dodders along with the rest of
you."

Mrs. Oaks hastened to declare that she, for one, had never believed
the Cummings sneers.

"I knew you wouldn't leave the meetin'house you was brought up in,
Azure," she said.  "I've said so right along.  Of course you have
been going to First Church Sunday mornings, but I understood that.
Mary Brewster is all alone and she likes to have you go with her
for company.  That's natural enough, and I told Cap'n Barney so."

Azure did not accept the olive branch.  "I guess I can go to
meetin' where I want to, IF I want to," she snapped.  "If this
meetin'house is the only front door to heaven then I suppose Barney
Cummings is Saint Peter and Kohath Briggs carries the keys for him.
Well, it'll take more than their word to make me believe it.  They
better be sure they are goin' to make the right port themselves
before they bother about the rest of us.  You can tell 'em I said
so, if you want to."

Mrs. Oaks was properly squelched and was silent.  Azure fired one
more broadside.

"I know what the real truth is, of course," she declared.  "It is
all over town that I set in the Brewster pew yesterday mornin'.
Well, I didn't do it on purpose and I shan't do it again.  Unless I
take a notion to," she added, emphatically.  "Then I shall and I
don't know who is goin' to stop me."

Mrs. Roxanna Beasley poured oil upon the troubled waters.

"Don't you think we'd better begin lookin' over the missionary
things," she suggested.  "Let's look at what Mrs. Crisp brought
first.  I am sure as she brought 'em right from Cap'n Brewster's
house they'll be perfectly lovely."

This was gratifying.  Azure's temper subsided to its wonted genteel
calm.  She untied the bundles brought by the livery man.  The
exclamations which greeted each item were as enthusiastic as even
she could have expected.

"Oh, isn't that sweet!" gushed Elsie Oaks, holding up and
displaying a black velvet hat, trimmed with black satin ribbon and
jet ornaments.  "I think that is too nice for--for heathen savages,
don't you?"

Most of them did, but Mrs. Crisp was grandly firm.

"_I_ put that in," she proclaimed.  "Mary didn't want me to.  She
laughed and seemed to think 'twas funny.  'That's an old hat of
mother's,' s