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Cap'n Dan's Daughter

by Joseph Crosby Lincoln · English · Gutenberg #6718 · 562,938 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Cap'n Dan's Daughter

Author: Joseph Crosby Lincoln


        
Release date: June 6, 2006 [eBook #6718]
                Most recently updated: March 5, 2018

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/6718

Credits: Produced by Don Lainson; David Widger


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CAP'N DAN'S DAUGHTER ***




Produced by Don Lainson





CAP'N DAN'S DAUGHTER


By Joseph C. Lincoln


1914




CAP'N DAN'S DAUGHTER



CHAPTER I


The Metropolitan Dry Goods and Variety Store at Trumet Centre was open
for business. Sam Bartlett, the boy whose duty it was to take down
the shutters, sweep out, dust, and wait upon early-bird customers, had
performed the first three of these tasks and gone home for breakfast.
The reason he had not performed the fourth--the waiting upon
customers--was simple enough; there had been no customers to wait upon.
The Metropolitan Dry Goods and Variety Store was open and ready for
business--but, unfortunately, there was no business.

There should have been. This was August, the season of the year when, if
ever, Trumet shopkeepers should be beaming across their counters at the
city visitor, male or female, and telling him or her, that “white duck
hats are all the go this summer,” or “there's nothin' better than an
oilskin coat for sailin' cruises or picnics.” Outing shirts and yachting
caps, fancy stationery, post cards, and chocolates should be changing
hands at a great rate and the showcase, containing the nicked blue
plates and cracked teapots, the battered candlesticks and tarnished
pewters, “genuine antiques,” should be opened at frequent intervals for
the inspection of bargain-seeking mothers and their daughters. July and
August are the Cape Cod harvest months; if the single-entry ledgers of
Trumet's business men do not show good-sized profits during that season
they are not likely to do so the rest of the year.

Captain Daniel Dott, proprietor of the Metropolitan Store, bending over
his own ledger spread on the little desk by the window at the rear of
his establishment, was realizing this fact, realizing it with a sinking
heart and a sense of hopeless discouragement. The summer was almost
over; September was only three days off; in another fortnight the hotels
would be closed, the boarding houses would be closing, and Trumet,
deserted by its money spending visitors, would be falling asleep,
relapsing into its autumn and winter hibernation. And the Dott ledger,
instead of showing a profit of a thousand or fifteen hundred dollars, as
it had the first summer after Daniel bought the business, showed but a
meager three hundred and fifty, over and above expenses.

Through the window the sun was shining brightly. From the road in front
of the store--Trumet's “Main Street”--came the rattle of wheels and the
sound of laughter and conversation in youthful voices. The sounds drew
nearer. Someone shouted “Whoa!” Daniel Dott, a ray of hope illuminating
his soul at the prospect of a customer, rose hurriedly from his seat by
the desk and hastened out into the shop.

A big two-horsed vehicle, the “barge” from the Manonquit House, had
stopped before the door. It was filled with a gay crowd, youths and
maidens from the hotel, dressed in spotless flannels and “blazers,” all
talking at once, and evidently carefree and happy. Two of the masculine
members of the party descended from the “barge” and entered the store.
Daniel, smiling his sweetest, stepped forward to meet them.

“Good mornin', good mornin',” he said. “A fine mornin', ain't it?”

The greeting was acknowledged by both of the young fellows, and one of
them added that it was a fine morning, indeed.

“Don't know as I ever saw a finer,” observed Daniel. “Off on a cruise
somewhere, I presume likely; hey?”

“Picnic down at the Point.”

“Well, you've got picnic weather, all right. Yes sir, you have!”

Comment concerning the weather is the inevitable preliminary to all
commercial transactions in Trumet. Now, preliminaries being over, Daniel
waited hopefully for what was to follow. His hopes were dashed.

“Is--is Miss Dott about?” inquired one of the callers.

“Miss Dott? Oh, Gertie! No, she ain't. She's gone down street
somewheres. Be back pretty soon, I shouldn't wonder.”

“Humph! Well, I'm afraid we can't wait. We hoped she might go with us on
the picnic. We--er--we wanted her very much.”

“That so? I'm sorry, but I'm afraid she couldn't go, even if she was
here. You see, it's her last day at home, and--we--her mother and
I--that is, I don't believe she'd want to leave us to-day.”

“No; no, of course not. Well, tell her we wish she might have come,
but we understand. Yes, yes,” in answer to the calls from the “barge,”
 “we're coming. Well, good by, Captain Dott.”

“Er--good by. Er--er--don't want anything to take along, do you? A nice
box of candy, or--or anything?”

“No, I think not. We stopped at the Emporium just now, and loaded up
with candy enough to last a week. Good morning.”

“How are you fixed for sun hats and things? I've got a nice line of hats
and--well, good by.”

“Good by.”

The “barge” moved off. Daniel, standing dejectedly in the door,
remembered his manners.

“Hope you have a nice time,” he shouted. Then he turned and moved
disconsolately back to the desk. He might have expected it. It was thus
in nine cases out of ten. The Emporium, Mr. J. Cohen, proprietor, was
his undoing in this instance as in so many others. The Emporium got the
trade and he got the good bys. Mr. Cohen was not an old resident, as
he was; Mr. Cohen's daughter was not invited to picnics by the summer
people; Mrs. Cohen was not head of the sewing circle and the Chapter of
the Ladies of Honor, and prominent socially, as was Mrs. Dott; but Mr.
Cohen bought cheap and sold cheap, and the Emporium flourished like a
green bay tree, while the Metropolitan Store was rapidly going to seed.
Daniel, looking out through the front window at the blue sea in the
distance, thought of the past, of the days when, as commander and
part owner of the three masted schooner Bluebird, he had been free and
prosperous and happy. Then he considered the future, which was bluer
than the sea, and sighed again. Why had he not been content to stick
to the profession he understood, to remain on the salt water he loved;
instead of retiring from the sea to live on dry land and squander his
small fortune in a business for which he was entirely unfitted?

And yet the answer was simple enough. Mrs. Dott--Mrs. Serena Dott, his
wife--was the answer, she and her social aspirations. It was Serena
who had coaxed him into giving up seafaring; who had said that it was
a shame for him to waste his life ordering foremast hands about when he
might be one of the leading citizens in his native town. It was Serena
who had persuaded him to invest the larger part of his savings in
the Metropolitan Store. Serena, who had insisted that Gertrude, their
daughter and only child, should leave home to attend the fashionable
and expensive seminary near Boston. Serena who--but there! it was all
Serena; and had been ever since they were married. Captain Daniel, on
board his schooner, was a man whose word was law. On shore, he was law
abiding, and his words were few.

The side door of the store--that leading to the yard separating it from
the Dott homestead--opened, and Azuba Ginn appeared. Azuba had been
the Dott maid of all work for eighteen years, ever since Gertrude was a
baby. She was married, but her husband, Laban Ginn, was mate on a steam
freighter running between New York and almost anywhere, and his shore
leaves were short and infrequent. Theirs was a curious sort of married
life. “We is kind of independent, Labe and me,” said Azuba. “He often
says to me--that is, as often as we're together, which ain't often--he
says to me, he says, 'Live where you want to, Zuby,' he says, 'and if
you want to move, move! When I get ashore I can hunt you up.' We don't
write many letters because time each get t'other's, the news is so
plaguey old 'tain't news at all. You Dotts seem more like home folks to
me than anybody else, so I stick to you. I presume likely I shall till I
die.”

Azuba entered the store in the way in which she did most things, with
a flurry and a slam. Her sleeves were rolled up, she wore an apron, and
one hand dripped suds, demonstrating that it had just been taken from
the dishpan. In the other, wiped more or less dry on the apron, she held
a crumpled envelope.

“Well!” she exclaimed, excitedly. “If some human bein's don't beat
the Dutch then _I_ don't know, that's all. If the way some folks go
slip-slop, hit or miss, through this world ain't a caution then--Tut!
tut! tut! don't talk to ME!”

Captain Dan looked up from the ledger.

“What?” he asked absently.

“I say, don't talk to ME!”

“We--ll,” with deliberation, “I guess I shan't, unless you stop talkin'
yourself, and give me a chance. What's the matter now, Zuba?”

“Matter! Don't talk to ME! Carelessness is the matter! Slip-sloppiness
is the matter! Here's a man that calls himself a man and goes mopin'
around pretendin' to BE a man, and what does he do?”

“I don't know. I'd tell you better, maybe, if I knew who he was.”

“Who he was! I'll tell you who he was--is, I mean. He's Balaam
Hambleton, that's who he is.”

“Humph! Bale Hamilton, hey? Then it's easy enough to say what he
does--nothin', most of the time. Is that letter for me?”

“Course it's for you! And it's a week old, what's more. One week ago
that letter come in the mail and the postmaster let that--that Hambleton
thing take it, 'cause he said he was goin' right by here and could leave
it just as well as not. And this very mornin' that freckle-faced boy
of his--that George Washin'ton one--what folks give such names to their
young ones for _I_ can't see!--he rung the front door bell and yanked
me right out of the dish water, and he says his ma found the letter in
Balaam's other pants when she was mendin' 'em, and would I please excuse
his forgettin' it 'cause he had so much on his mind lately. Mind! Land
of love! if he had a thistle top on his mind 'twould smash it flat.
Don't talk to me!”

“I won't,” drily; “I WON'T, Zuba, I swear it. Let's see the letter.”

He bent forward and took the letter from her hand. Then, adjusting his
spectacles, he examined the envelope. It was of the ordinary business
size and was stamped with the Boston postmark, and a date a week old.
Captain Dan looked at the postmark, studied the address, which was in an
unfamiliar handwriting, and then turned the envelope over. On the flap
was printed “Shepley and Farwell, Attorneys, ----- Devonshire Street.”
 The captain drew a long breath; he leaned back in his chair and sat
staring at the envelope.

Azuba wiped the suds from her wet hand and arm upon her apron. Then she
wrapped it and the other arm in said apron and coughed. The cough was
intended to arouse her employer from the trance into which he had,
apparently, fallen. But it was without effect. Captain Daniel did stop
staring at the envelope, but he merely transferred his gaze to the
ink-spattered blotter and the ledger upon it, and stared at them.

“Well?” observed Azuba.

The captain started. “Hey?” he exclaimed, looking up. “Did you speak?”

“I said 'Well?'. I suppose that's speakin'?”

“'Well?' Well what?”

“Oh, nothin'! I was just wonderin'--”

“Wonderin' what?”

“I was wonderin' if that letter was anything important. Ain't you goin'
to open it and see?”

“Hey? Open it? Oh, yes, yes. Well, I shouldn't wonder if I opened it
some time or other, Zuba. I gen'rally open my letters. It's a funny
habit I have.”

“Humph! Well, all right, then. I didn't know. Course, 'tain't none of my
business what's in other folks's letters. _I_ ain't nosey, land knows.
Nobody can accuse me of--”

“Nobody can accuse you of anything, Zuba. Not even dish washin' just
now.”

Azuba drew herself up. Outraged dignity and injured pride were expressed
in every line of her figure. “Well!” she exclaimed; “WELL! if that
ain't--if that don't beat all that ever _I_ heard! Here I leave my work
to do folks favors, to fetch and carry for 'em, and this is what I get.
Cap'n Dott, I want you to understand that I ain't dependent on nobody
for a job. I don't HAVE to slave myself to death for nobody. If you
ain't satisfied--”

“There, there, Zuba! I was only jokin'. Don't get mad!”

“Mad! Who's mad, I'd like to know? It takes more'n that to make me mad,
I'd have you understand.”

“That's good; I'm glad of it. Well, I'm much obliged to you for bringin'
the letter.”

“You're welcome. Land sakes! I don't mind doin' errands, only I like
to have 'em appreciated. And I like jokes well as anybody, but when you
tell me--”

“Hold on! don't get het up again. Keep cool, Zuba, keep cool! Think of
that dish water; it's gettin' cooler every minute.”

The answer to this was an indignant snort followed by the bang of the
door. Azuba had gone. Captain Daniel looked after her, smiled faintly,
shook his head, and again turned his attention to the letter in his
hand. He did not open it immediately. Instead he sat regarding it with
the same haggard, hopeless expression which he had worn when he first
read the firm's name upon the envelope. He dreaded, perhaps, as much as
he had ever dreaded anything in his life, to open that envelope.

He was sure, perfectly sure, what he should find when he did open it.
A letter from the legal representatives of Smith and Denton, the Boston
hat manufacturers and dealers, stating that, unless the latter's
account was paid within the next week, suit for the amount due would be
instituted in the courts. A law suit! a law suit for the collection of
a debt against him, Daniel Dott, the man who had prided himself upon
his honesty! Think of what it would mean! the disgrace of it! the
humiliation, not only for himself but for Serena, his wife, and
Gertrude, his daughter!

He did not blame Smith and Denton; they had been very kind, very lenient
indeed. The thirty-day credit originally given him had been extended to
sixty and ninety. They had written him many times, and each time he had
written in reply that as soon as collections were better he should be
able to pay in full; that he had a good deal of money owed him, and
as soon as it came in they should have it. But it did not come in. No
wonder, considering that it was owed by the loafers and ne'er-do-wells
of the town and surrounding country, who, because no one else would
trust them, bestowed their custom upon good-natured, gullible Captain
Dan. The more recent letters from the hat dealers had been sharper and
less kindly. They had ceased to request; they demanded. At last they had
threatened. And now the threat was to be fulfilled.

The captain laid the envelope down upon the open ledger, rose, and,
going to the front of the store, carefully closed the door. Then, going
to the door communicating with the other half of the store, he made sure
that no one was in the adjoining room. He had a vague feeling that all
the eyes in Trumet were regarding him with suspicion, and he wished to
shut out their accusing gaze. He wanted to be alone when he read that
letter. He had half a mind to take it to the cellar and open it there.

His fingers shook as he tore the end from the envelope. They shook still
more as he drew forth the enclosure, a typewritten sheet, and held it to
the light. He read it through to the end. Then, with a loud exclamation,
almost a shout, he rushed to the side door, flung it open and darted
across the yard, the letter fluttering from his fingers like a flag. The
store was left unguarded, but he forgot that.

He stumbled up the steps into the kitchen. Azuba, a saucer in one hand
and the dish towel in the other, was, to say the least, startled. As she
expressed it afterward, “the everlastin' soul was pretty nigh scart out
of her.” The saucer flew through the air and lit upon the top of the
cookstove.

“What--what--what--” stammered Azuba. “Oh, my land! WHAT is it?”

“Where's Serena?” demanded Captain Daniel, paying no attention to the
saucer, except to tread upon the fragments.

“Hey? Oh, what IS it? Is the store afire?”

“No, no! Where's Serena?”

“She--she--what--”

“Where's SERENA, I ask you?”

“In her room, I cal'late. For mercy sakes, what--”

But the captain did not answer. Through dining-room, sitting-room, and
parlor he galloped, and up the front stairs to the bedroom occupied by
himself and wife. Mrs. Dott was standing before the mirror, red-faced
and panting, both arms behind her and her fingers busily engaged. Her
husband's breath was almost gone by the time he reached the foot of the
stairs; consequently his entrance was a trifle less noisy and startling
than his sky-rocket flight through the kitchen. It is doubtful if his
wife would have noticed even if it had been. She caught a glimpse of him
in the mirror, and heaved a sigh of relief.

“Oh, it's you, is it!” she panted. “My, I'm glad! For mercy sakes fasten
those last three hooks; I'm almost distracted with 'em.”

But the hooks remained unfastened for the time. Captain Dan threw
himself into a chair and waved the letter.

“Serena,” he cried, puffing like a stranded porpoise, “what--WHAT do you
suppose has happened? Aunt Laviny is dead.”

Serena turned. “Dead!” she repeated. “Your Aunt Lavinia Dott? The rich
one?”

“Yes, sir; she's gone. Died in Italy a fortnight ago. Naples, I think
'twas--or some such outlandish place; you know she's done nothin' but
cruise around Europe ever since Uncle Jim died. The letter says she was
taken sick on a Friday, and died Sunday, so 'twas pretty sudden. I--”

But Mrs. Dott interrupted. “What else does it say?” she asked excitedly.
“What else does that letter say? Who is if from?”

“It's from her lawyers up to Boston. What made you think it said
anything else?”

“Because I'm not blind and I can see your face, Daniel Dott. What else
does it say? Tell me! Has she--did she--?”

Captain Dan nodded solemnly. “She didn't forget us,” he said. “She
didn't forget us, Serena. The letter says her will gives us that solid
silver teapot and sugar-bowl that was presented to Uncle Jim by the Ship
Chandlers' Society, when he was president of it. She willed that to us.
She knew I always admired that tea-pot and--”

His wife interrupted once more.

“Tea-pot!” she repeated strongly. “Tea-pot! What are you talking about?
Do you mean to say that all she left us was a TEA-POT? If you do I--”

“No, no, Serena. Hush! She's left us three thousand dollars besides.
Think of it! Three thousand dollars--just now!”

His voice shook as he said it. He spoke as if three thousand dollars was
an unheard-of sum, a fortune. Mrs. Dott had no such illusion. She sat
down upon the edge of the bed.

“Three thousand dollars!” she exclaimed. “Is that all? Three thousand
dollars!”

“All! My soul, Serena! Why, ONE thousand dollars just now is like--”

“Hush! Do be still! Three thousand dollars! And she worth a hundred
thousand, if she was worth a cent. A lone woman, without a chick or
a child or a relation except you, and that precious young swell of a
cousin of hers she thought so much of. I suppose he gets the rest of it.
Oh, how can anybody be so stingy!”

“Sh-sh, sh-h, Serena. Don't speak so of the dead. Why, we ought to be
mournin' for her, really, instead of rejoicing over what she left us.
It ain't right to talk so. I'm ashamed of myself--or I ought to be. But,
you see, I thought sure the letter was from those hat folks's lawyers,
sayin' they'd started suit. When I found it wasn't, I was so glad I
forgot everything else. Ah hum!--poor Aunt Laviny!”

He sighed. His wife shook her head.

“Daniel,” she said, “I--I declare I try not to lose patience with you,
but it's awful hard work. Mourning! Mourn for her! What did she ever do
to make you sorry she was gone? Did she ever come near us when she was
alive? No, indeed, she didn't. Did she ever offer to give you, or even
lend you, a cent? I guess not. And she knew you needed it, for I wrote
her.”

“You DID? Serena!”

“Yes, I did. Why shouldn't I? I wrote her six months ago, telling her
how bad your business was, and that Gertie was at school, and we were
trying to give her a good education, and how much money it took and--oh,
everything. When your Uncle Jim's business was bad, in the hard
times back in '73, who was it that helped him out and saved him from
bankruptcy? Why, his brother--your own father. And he never got a cent
of it back. I reminded her of that, too.”

Daniel sprang out of his chair.

“You did!” he cried again. “Serena, how could you? You knew how Father
felt about that money. You knew how I felt. And yet, you did that!”

“I did. Somebody in this family must be practical and worldly-minded,
and I seem to be the one. YOU wouldn't ask her for a cent. You wouldn't
ask anybody for money, even if they owed it a thousand years. You sell
everybody anything they want from the store; and trust them for it. You
know you do. You sold that good-for-nothing Lem Brackett a whole suit of
clothes only last week, and he owes you a big bill and has owed it for a
year.”

Her husband looked troubled. “Well,” he answered, slowly, “I suppose
likely I didn't do right there. But those Bracketts are poor, and
there's a big family of 'em, and the fall's comin' on, and--and all.
So--”

“So you thought it was your duty to help support them, I suppose. Oh,
Daniel, Daniel, I don't know what to do with you sometimes.”

Captain Dan looked very grave.

“I guess you're right, Serena,” he admitted. “I ain't much good, I'm
afraid.”

Mrs. Dott's expression changed. She rose, walked over, and kissed him.
“You're too good, that's the main trouble with you,” she said. “Well, I
won't scold any more. I'm glad we've got the three thousand anyway--and
the tea-pot.”

“It's a lovely tea-pot, all engravin' and everything. And the
sugar-bowl's almost as pretty. You'll like 'em, Serena.”

“Yes, I'll love 'em, I don't doubt. You and I can look at them and think
of that cousin of Aunt Lavinia's spending the rest of her fortune. No
wonder she didn't leave him the tea-pot; precious little tea he
drinks, if stories we hear are true. Well, there's one good thing about
it--Gertie can keep on with her college. This is her last year.”

“Yes; I thought of that. I thought of a million things when I was racin'
across the yard with this letter. Say, Serena, you've never told Gertie
anything about how trade was or how hard-up we've been?”

“Of course not.”

“No, I knew you wouldn't. She's such a conscientious girl; if she
thought we couldn't afford it she wouldn't think of keepin' on with that
college, and I've set my heart on her havin' the best start in life we
can give her.”

“I know. Ah hum! I wish she could have the start some people's daughters
have. Mrs. Black was with me at the lodge room yesterday--we are
decorating for the men's evening to-morrow night, you know--and Mrs.
Black has been helping me; she's awfully kind that way. You'd think she
belonged here in Trumet, instead of being rich and living in Scarford
and being way up in society there. She and her husband are just like
common folks.”

“Humph! Barney Black IS common folks. He was born right here in Trumet
and his family was common as wharf rats. HE needn't put on airs with
me.”

“He doesn't. And yet, if he was like some people, he would. So
successful in his big factory, and his wife way up in the best circles
of Scarford; she's head of the Ladies of Honor there as I am here, and
means to get a national office in the order; she told me so. But there!
that reminds me that I was going to meet her at the lodge room at ten,
and it's half-past nine now. Do help me with these hooks. If I wasn't so
fleshy I could do them myself, but I almost died hooking the others.”

“Why didn't you call Zuba? She'd have hooked 'em for you.”

“Azuba! Heavens and earth! She's worse than nobody; her fingers are all
thumbs. Besides, she would talk me deaf, dumb and blind. She doesn't
know her place at all; thinks she is one of the family, I suppose.”

“Well, she is, pretty nigh. Been here long enough.”

“I don't care. She isn't one of the family; she's a servant, or ought to
be. Oh dear! when I hear Annette Black telling about her four servants
and all the rest it makes me so jealous, sometimes.”

“Don't make ME jealous. I'd rather have you and Gertie and this place
than all Barney Black owns--and that means his wife, too.”

“Daniel, I keep telling you not to call Mr. Black 'Barney.' He is
B. Phelps Black now. Mrs. Black always calls him 'Phelps.' So does
everybody in Scarford, so she says.”

“Want to know! He was Barney Black when he lived here regular. Havin'
a summer cottage here and a real house in Scarford must make a lot of
difference. By the way, speakin' of Scarford, that's where Aunt Laviny
used to live afore she went abroad. She owned a big house there.”

“Why, so she did! I wonder what will become of it. I suppose that cousin
will get it, along with the rest. Oh dear! suppose--just suppose there
wasn't any cousin. Suppose you and I and Gertie had that house and the
money. Wouldn't it be splendid? WE could be in society then.”

“Humph! I'd look pretty in society, wouldn't I?”

“Of course you would. You'd look as pretty as Barney--B. Phelps Black,
wouldn't you? And I--Oh, HOW I should love it! Trumet is so out of date.
A real intelligent, ambitious woman has no chance in Trumet.”

The captain shook his head. He recognized the last sentence as a
quotation from the works of Mrs. Annette Black, self-confessed leader
in society in the flourishing manufacturing city of Scarford, and summer
resident and condescending patroness of Trumet.

“Well,” he observed; “we've got more chance, even in Trumet, than we've
had for the last year, thanks to Aunt Laviny's three thousand. It gives
us a breathin' spell, anyhow. If only trade in the store would pick up,
I--Hey! Good heavens to Betsy! I forgot the store altogether. Sam
hadn't got back from breakfast and I left the store all alone. I must be
crazy!”

He bolted from the room and down the stairs, the legacy forgotten for
the moment, and in his mind pictures of rifled showcases and youthful
Trumet regaling itself with chocolates at his expense. Azuba shrieked
another question as her employer once more rushed through the kitchen,
but again her question was unanswered. She hurried to the window and
watched him running across the yard.

“Well!” she exclaimed, in alarmed soliloquy. “WELL, the next time I
fetch that man a letter I'll fetch the doctor along with it. Has the
world turned upside down, or what is the matter?”

She might have made a worse guess. The Dott world was turning upside
down; this was the beginning of the revolution.



CHAPTER II


Captain Dan's fears concerning the safety of his showcases were
groundless. Even as he sprang up the steps to the side door of his place
of business, he heard familiar voices in the store. He recognized
the voices, and, halting momentarily to wipe his forehead with his
handkerchief and to regain some portion of his composure and his breath,
he walked in.

Gertrude, his daughter, was seated in his chair by the desk, and John
Doane was leaning upon the desk, talking with her. In the front of the
store, Sam Bartlett, the boy, who had evidently returned from breakfast,
was doing nothing in particular, and doing it with his usual air of
enjoyment. It was only when required to work that Sam was unhappy.

Gertrude looked up as her father entered; prior to that she had been
looking at the blotter on the desk. John Doane, who had been looking at
Gertrude, also changed the direction of his gaze. Captain Dan struggled
with the breath and the composure.

“Why, Dad!” exclaimed Gertrude. “What is it?”

“What's the matter, Cap'n Dott?” asked Mr. Doane.

Daniel did his best to appear calm; it was a poor best. At fifty-two one
cannot run impromptu hurdle races against time, and show no effects.

“Hey?” he panted. “Matter? Nothin's the matter. I left the store alone
for a minute and I was in a kind of hurry to get back to it, that's
all.”

The explanation was not entirely satisfactory. Gertrude looked more
puzzled than ever.

“A minute,” she repeated. “Left it a minute! Why, John and I have been
here fifteen minutes, and Sam was here when we came.”

The captain looked at his watch. “Well, maybe 'twas a little more'n a
minute,” he admitted.

Master Bartlett sauntered up to take part in the conversation.

“I got here twenty minutes ago,” he observed, grinning, “and you wasn't
here then, Cap'n Dan'l. I was wonderin' what had become of ye.”

Daniel seized the opportunity to change the subject.

“Anybody been in since you came?” he asked, addressing Sam.

“No, nobody special. Abel Calvin was in to see if you wanted to buy some
beach plums for puttin' up. He said he had about a bushel of first-rate
ones, just picked.”

“Beach plums! What in time would I want of beach plums? I don't put up
preserves, do I? Why didn't he go to the house?”

“I asked him that, myself, and he said 'twa'n't no use.”

“No use! What did he mean by that?”

“Well, he said--he said--” Sam seemed suddenly to realize that he was
getting into deep water; “he said--he said somethin' or other; I guess
I've forgot what 'twas.”

“I guess you ain't. WHAT did he say?”

“Well, he said--he said Serena--Mrs. Dott, I mean--was probably
gallivantin' down to the lodge room by this time. Said 'twa'n't no use
tryin' to get her to attend to common things or common folks nowadays;
she was too busy tryin' to keep up with Annette Black.”

This literal quotation from the frank Mr. Calvin caused a sensation.
Captain Dan struggled to find words. His daughter laid a hand on his
sleeve.

“Never mind, Dad,” she said, soothingly. “You know what Abel Calvin is;
you don't mind what he says. Sam, you shouldn't repeat such nonsense.
Run away now and attend to your work. I'm sure there's enough for you to
do.”

“You--you go and clean up the cellar,” ordered the irate captain. Sam
departed cellarward, muttering that it wasn't his fault; HE hadn't said
nothin'. Gertrude spoke again.

“Don't mind that, Dad,” she urged. “Why, how warm you are, and how
excited you look. What is it? You haven't spoken a word to John.”

Her father shook his head. “Mornin', John,” he said. “I beg your pardon.
I ain't responsible to-day, I shouldn't wonder. I--I've had some news
that's drivin' everything else out of my mind.”

“News? Why, Dad! what do you mean? Bad news?”

“No, no! Good as ever was, and.... Humph! no, I don't mean that. It is
bad news, of course. Your Great-aunt Laviny's dead, Gertie.”

He told of the lawyer's letter, omitting for the present the news of the
legacy. Gertrude was interested, but not greatly shocked or grieved. She
had met her great-aunt but once during her lifetime, and her memory of
the deceased was of a stately female, whose earrings and brooches and
rings sparkled as if she was on fire in several places; who sat bolt
upright at the further end of a hotel room in Boston, and ordered
Captain Dan not to bring “that child” any nearer until its hands were
washed. As she had been the child and had distinctly disagreeable
recollections of the said hands having been washed three times before
admittance to the presence, the memory was not too pleasant. She said
she was sorry to hear that Aunt Lavinia was no more, and asked when it
happened. Her father told what he knew of the circumstances attending
the bereavement, which was not much.

“She's gone, anyhow,” he said. “It's liable to happen to any of us,
bein' cut off that way. We ought to be prepared, I suppose.”

“I suppose so. But, Daddy, Aunt Lavinia wasn't cut off exactly, was she?
She was your aunt and she must have been quite old.”

“Hey? Why, let's see. She was your grandpa's brother's wife, and
he--Uncle Jim, I mean--was about four years older than Father. She
was three years younger'n he was when he married her. Let's see again.
Father--that's your grandpa, Gertie--was sixty-five when he died and...
Humph! No, Aunt Laviny was eighty-eight, or thereabouts. She wasn't
exactly cut off, was she, come to think of it?”

Gertrude's brown eyes twinkled. “Not exactly--no,” she said, gravely.
“Well, Daddy, I'm sure I am sorry she has gone, but, considering that
she has never deigned to visit us or have us visit her, or even to write
you a letter for the past two years, I don't think we should be expected
to mourn greatly. And,” glancing at him, “I don't understand just what
you meant by saying first that the news was good, and then that it was
bad. There is something else, isn't there?”

Her father smiled, in an embarrassed way. “Well, ye--es,” he admitted,
“there is somethin' else, but--but I don't know as I didn't do wrong to
feel so good over it. I--I guess I'll tell you by and by, if you don't
mind. Maybe then I won't feel--act, I mean--so tickled. It don't seem
right that I should be. Let me get sort of used to it first. I'll tell
you pretty soon.”

His daughter laughed, softly. “I know you will, Dad,” she said. “You
couldn't keep a secret in that dear old head of yours if you tried. Not
from me, anyway; could you, dear?”

“I guess not,” regarding her fondly. “Anyhow, I shan't try to keep this
one. Well, this time to-morrow you'll be back at college again, in among
all those Greek and Latin folks. Wonder she'll condescend to come and
talk plain United States to us Cape Codders, ain't it, John.”

John Doane admitted that it was a wonder. He seemed to regard Miss Dott
as a very wonderful young person altogether. Gertrude glanced up at him,
then at her father, and then at the blotter on the desk. She absently
played with the pages of the ledger.

“Dad,” she said, suddenly, “you are not the only one who has a secret.”

The captain turned and looked at her. Her head was bent over the ledger
and he could see but the top of a very becoming hat, a stray lock of
wavy brown hair, and the curve of a very pretty cheek. The cheek--what
he could see of it--was crimson. He looked up at Mr. Doane. That young
man's face was crimson also.

“Oh!” said Captain Daniel; and added, “I want to know!”

“Yes, you're not the only one. We--I--there is another secret. Daddy,
dear, John wants to talk with you.”

The captain looked at Mr. Doane, then at the hat and the face beneath
it.

“Oh!” he said, again.

“Yes. I--I--” She rose and, putting her arms about her father's neck,
kissed him. “I will be back before long, dear,” she whispered, and
hurried out. Mr. Doane cleared his throat. Captain Dan waited.

“Well, sir,” began the young man, and stopped. The captain continued to
wait.

“Well, sir,” began Mr. Doane, again, “I--I--” For one who, as Gertrude
had declared, wished to talk, he seemed to be finding the operation
difficult. “I--Well, sir, the fact is, I have something to say to you.”

Captain Dan, who was looking very grave, observed that he “wanted to
know.” John Doane cleared his throat once more, and took a fresh start.

“Yes, sir,” he said, “I have something to say to you--er--something
that--that may surprise you.”

A faint smile disturbed the gravity of the captain's face.

“May surprise me, hey?” he repeated. “Is that so?”

“Yes. You see, I--Gertie and I--have--are--”

Daniel looked up.

“Hard navigatin', ain't it, John?” he inquired, whimsically. “Maybe I
could help you over the shoals. You and Gertie think you'd like to get
married sometime or other, I presume likely. Is that what you're tryin'
to tell me?”

There was no doubt of it. The young man's face expressed several
emotions, relief that the great secret was known, and surprise that
anyone should have guessed it.

“Why, yes, sir,” he admitted, “that is it. Gertie and I have known each
other for years, ever since we were children, in fact; and, you see--you
see--” he paused once more, began again, and then broke out impatiently
with, “I'm making an awful mess of this. I don't know why.”

Captain Dan's smile broadened.

“I made just as bad a one myself, once on a time,” he observed. “Just
as bad, or worse--and _I_ didn't know why either. There, John, you sit
down. Come to anchor alongside here, and let's talk this thing over in
comfort.”

Mr. Doane “came to anchor” on an empty packing case beside the desk. As
he was tall and big, and the box was low and small, the “comfort” was
doubtful. However, neither of the pair noticed this at the time.

“So you think you want Gertie, do you, John?” said the captain.

“I know it,” was the emphatic answer.

“So. And she thinks she wants you?”

“She says so.”

“Humph!” with a sidelong glance. “Think she means it?”

“I'm trying to believe she does.”

The tone in which this was uttered caused Captain Dan to chuckle. “'Tis
strange, I'll give in,” he remarked, drily. “No accountin' for taste, is
there--Well,” his gravity returning, “I suppose likely you realize that
her mother and I think consider'ble of her.”

“I realize that thoroughly.”

“You don't realize it as much as you will some day, perhaps. Yes, we
think Gertie's about right. She's a smart girl and, what's more, she's
a good girl, and she's all the child we've got. Of course we've realized
that she was growin' up and that--Oh, good mornin', Alphy. Fine weather,
ain't it. Lookin' for somethin', was you?”

He hurried out into the store to sell Mrs. Theophilus Berry, known
locally as “Alphy Ann,” a box of writing paper and a penholder. The
transaction completed, he returned to his chair. John Doane, who had
recovered, in a measure, from his embarrassment, was ready for him.

“Cap'n Dott,” said the young man, “I know how you feel, I think. I
know what Gertie is to you and how anxious you and her mother must
be concerning her future. If I did not feel certain--practically
certain--that I could give her a good home and all that goes with it,
I should not have presumed to speak to her, or to you, concerning
marriage. My business prospects are good, or I think they are. I--”

The captain held up his hand. “Er--er--John,” he said, uneasily, “maybe
you'd better tell about that part of it when Serena's around. She's the
practical one of us two, I guess, far's money's concerned, anyway. I
used to think I was pretty practical when I was on salt water, but--but
lately I ain't so sure. I'm afraid--”

He stopped, began to speak again, and then relapsed into silence,
seeming to forget his companion altogether. The latter reminded him by
saying:

“I shall be glad to tell Mrs. Dott everything, of course. I have been
with the firm now employing me for eight years, ever since I left high
school. They seem to like me. I have been steadily advanced, my salary
is a fairly good one, and in another year I have the promise of a
partnership. After that my progress will depend upon myself.”

He went on, in a manly, straightforward manner, to speak of his hopes
and ambitions. Daniel listened, but the most of what he heard was
incomprehensible. Increased output and decreased manufacturing
costs were Greek to him. When the young man paused, he brought the
conversation back to what, in his mind, was the essential.

“And you're certain sure that you two care enough for each other?” he
asked. “Not just care, but care enough?”

“Yes.”

“Well, then, I guess I ain't got much to say. There's one thing, though.
Gertie's young. She ain't finished her schoolin' yet, and--”

“And you think she should. So do I. She wishes to do it, herself, and I
should be the last to prevent her, even if I could. We have agreed that
she shall have the final year at college and then come back to you.
After that--well, after that, the time of our marriage can be settled.
Gertie and I are willing to wait; we expect to. In a few years I shall
have a little more money, I hope, and be more sure of success in life.
I may never be a rich man, but Gertie's tastes and mine are modest. She
does not care for society--”

The captain interrupted. “That's so,” he said, hastily, “she don't. She
don't care for 'em at all. Her mother has the greatest work to get her
to go to lodge meetin's. No, she don't care for societies any more'n I
do. Well, John, I--I--it'll come pretty hard to give her up to anybody.
Wait till you have a daughter of your own and you'll know how hard. But,
if I've got to give her up, I'd rather give her to you than anybody
I know. You're a Trumet boy and I've known you all my life, and so's
Gertie, for that matter. All I can say is, God bless you and--and take
good care of my girl, that's all.”

He extended his hand and John seized it. Then the captain coughed,
blew his nose with vigor, and, reaching into his pocket, produced two
battered cigars.

“Smoke up, John,” he said.

At dinner, a meal at which Mrs. Dott, still busy with the lodge room
decorations, was not present, Gertrude and her father talked it over.

“It comes kind of hard, Gertie,” he admitted, “but, Lord love you,
there's a heap of hard things in this world. John's a good fellow
and--and, well, we ain't goin' to lose you just yet, anyhow.”

Gertrude rose and, coming around the table, put her arms about his neck.

“Indeed you're not, dear,” she said. “If I supposed my marriage meant
giving you up, I shouldn't think of it.”

“Want to know! Wouldn't think of John, either, I suppose, hey?”

“Well, I--I might think of him a little, just a tiny little bit.”

“I shouldn't wonder. That's all right. You can't get rid of me so easy.
After you two are all settled in your fine new house, I'll be comin'
around to disgrace you, puttin' my boots on the furniture and--”

“Dad!”

“Won't I? Well, maybe I won't. I cal'late by that time I'll be broke
to harness. Your mother's gettin' in with the swells so, lately, Barney
Black's wife and the rest, that I'll have to mind my manners. There!
let's go into the sittin'-room a few minutes and give Zuba a chance to
clear off. Sam's tendin' store and his dinner can wait a spell; judgin'
by the time he took for breakfast he hadn't ought to be hungry for the
next week.”

In the sitting-room they spoke of many things, of Gertrude's departure
for school--she was leaving on the three o'clock train--of the
engagement, of course, and of the three thousand dollar windfall from
Aunt Lavinia. The captain had told that bit of news when they sat down
to dinner.

“What is that cousin's name?” asked Gertrude. “The one who inherits all
of your aunt's fortune?”

“Let's see. His name? I ought to know it well's I know my own.
It's--it's Starvation, or somethin' like that. Somethin' about bein'
hungry, anyhow. Hungerford, Percy Hungerford, that's it!”

Gertrude looked surprised.

“Not Percy Hungerford--of Scarford!” she cried. “What sort of a man is
he? What does he look like?”

“Looked like a picked chicken, last time I saw him. Kind of a spindlin'
little critter, with sandy complexion and hair, but dressed--my soul!
there wasn't any picked chicken look about his clothes.”

Gertrude nodded. “I believe it is the same one,” she said. “Yes, I am
sure of it. He came out to the college at one of our commencements. One
of the girls invited him. He danced with me--once. They said he was very
wealthy.”

“Humph! All the wealth he had come from Aunt Laviny, far's I ever
heard. He was her pet and the only thing she ever spent money on, except
herself. And you met him! Well, this is a small world. Like him, did
you?”

“No,” said Gertrude, and changed the subject.

Before her father departed for the store and she went to her room to
finish packing, she sat upon the arm of his chair and, bending down,
said:

“Daddy, if you hadn't got this money, this three thousand dollars, do
you know what I had very nearly made up my mind to do?”

“No, I'm sure I don't.”

“I had almost decided not to stay at college, but to come back here and
live with you and mother.”

“For the land sakes! Why?”

“Because I was sure you needed me. You never told me, of course--being
you, you wouldn't--but I was sure that you were troubled about--about
things.”

“Me? Troubled? What put that into your head? I'm the most gay,
happy-go-lucky fellow in the world. I don't get troubled enough. Ask
your mother if that ain't so.”

“I shall not ask anybody but you. Tell me truly: Weren't you troubled;
about the business, and the store? Truly, now.”

Captain Dan rubbed his chin. He wished very much to deny the allegation,
or at least to dodge the truth. But he was a poor prevaricator at any
time, and his daughter was looking him straight in the eye.

“Well,” he faltered, “I--I--How in time did you guess that? I--Humph!
why, yes, I was a little mite upset. You see, trade ain't been first
rate this summer, and collections were awful slow. I hate to drive
folks, especially when I know they're hard up. I was a little worried,
but it's all right now. Aunt Laviny's three thousand fixed that all
right. It'll carry me along like a full sail breeze. You go back to
school, like a sensible girl, and don't you worry a mite. It's all right
now, Gertie.”

“Honest?”

“Honest to Betsy!” with an emphatic nod.

He meant it; he really thought it was all right. The fact that he owed
a thousand already and that the remaining two would almost certainly be
swept into the capacious maw of the Metropolitan Store did not occur to
him then. Daniel Dott was a failure as a business man but as an optimist
he was a huge success.

“Then you're sure you can afford to have me go back for my last year?”

“Course I am. I couldn't afford to do anything else.”

His absolute certainty stifled his daughter's doubts for the time, but
she asked another question.

“And there's nothing that troubles you at all?”

“No-o.” The captain's answer was not quite as emphatic this time.
Gertrude smiled, and patted his shoulder.

“Daddy, dear,” she said, “you're as transparent as a window pane, aren't
you. Well, don't worry any more. That will be all right pretty soon,
too. Mrs. Black doesn't stay in Trumet all the year.”

Her father gasped. That this child of his, whom he had always regarded
as a child, should dive into the recesses of his soul and drag to light
its most secret misgivings was amazing.

“What on earth?” he demanded.

“You know what I mean. I'm not blind. I can see. Mother is just a little
carried away. She has heard so much about big houses and servants and
society and woman's opportunity, and all the rest of it, that she has
been swept off her feet. But it won't last, I'm sure. She isn't really
discontented; she only thinks she is.”

Daniel sighed. “I know,” he said. “Fact is, I ain't up-to-date enough,
myself, that's what's the matter. She's a mighty able, ambitious
woman, your mother is, Gertie, and I don't wonder she gets to thinkin',
sometimes, that Trumet is a kind of one-horse town. I like it; I AM
one-horse, I suppose. But she ain't, and she ain't satisfied to be
satisfied, like me. It's a good thing she ain't, I guess. Somebody's got
to live up to the responsibilities of life, and--”

Gertrude laughed. “She said that, didn't she,” she interrupted.

“Why, yes, she did. She says it every once in a while. How did you
know?”

“I guessed. And I imagine Mrs. Phelps Black said it first. But there,
Dad, be patient and.... Sh-sh! here's Mother now.”

It was Serena, sure enough, breathless from hurrying, her hat a bit
on one side, one glove off and the other on, but full of energy and
impatience.

“I suppose you've had dinner,” she exclaimed. “Well, all right, I don't
care. I couldn't help being late, there was so much to do at the lodge
rooms and nobody to do it right, except me. If Mrs. Black hadn't helped
and superintended and--and everything, I don't know where we should have
been. And those visiting delegates from Boston coming! I must get a bite
and hurry back. Where's Azuba? Azuba!”

She was rushing in the direction of the kitchen, but her husband
detained her.

“Hold on, Serena,” he shouted. “Goin' back! What do you mean? You ain't
goin' back to that lodge this afternoon, are you? Why, Gertie's goin' on
the up-train!”

“I know, but I must go back, Daniel. Goodness knows what would happen
if I didn't. If you had seen some of the decorations those other women
wanted to put up, you would think it was necessary for someone with
respectable taste to be there. Why, Sophronia Smalley actually would
have draped the presiding officer's desk--MY desk--with a blue flag with
a white whale on it, if I hadn't been there to stop her.”

“Well, I--Why, Serena, you know Sophrony thinks a sight of that flag.
Simeon Smalley, her father, was in the whalin' trade for years, and that
flag was his private signal. She always has that flag up somewhere.”

“Well, she shan't have it on my desk. Annette--Mrs. Black, I mean--said
it was ridiculous. If such a thing happened in Scarford the audience
would have hysterics. Would you want your wife to make a spectacle of
herself, before those Boston delegates, standing behind a white whale,
and a dirty white at that! Gertie, I shall be at the depot to say good
by, but I must be at that lodge room first. I MUST. You understand,
don't you?”

Gertrude said she understood perfectly and her mother hurried to the
kitchen, where she ate lukewarm fried fish and apple pie, while Azuba
washed the dishes and prophesied darkly concerning “dyspepsy.” Gertrude
went to her room to put the last few things in her trunks, and Captain
Dan returned to the store, where he found the Bartlett boy pacifying a
gnawing appetite with chocolate creams abstracted from stock.

At a quarter to three the captain was at the railway station, where
he was joined by John Doane, who, his vacation over, was returning
to Boston. After a five-minute wait Serena and Gertrude appeared. The
latter had called at the lodge room for her mother and, during the walk
to the station, had broken the news of her engagement.

Serena was not surprised, of course; she, like everyone else, had
expected it, and she liked John. But she was a good deal agitated and
even the portentous business of the lodge meeting was driven from her
mind. She and Mr. Doane shook hands, but the young man felt very much
like a thief, and a particularly mean sort of thief, as young men are
likely to feel under such circumstances. Farewells were harder to say
than usual, although Gertrude tried her best to seem cheerful, and
the captain swallowed the lump in his throat and smiled and joked in a
ghastly fashion all through the ceremony. Just before the train started,
his daughter led him to one side and whispered:

“Now, Daddy, remember--you are not to worry. And, if you need me at
any time, you will tell me so, and I shall surely come. You'll promise,
won't you? And you will write at least once a week?”

The captain made both promises. They kissed, Serena and Gertrude
exchanged hugs, and John Doane solemnly shook hands once more. Then the
train moved away from the station.

Daniel and Serena walked homeward, Mrs. Dott wiping her eyes with a damp
handkerchief, and her husband very grave and silent. As they passed the
lodge building the lady said:

“I ought to go right back in there again. I ought to, but I just can't,
not now. I--I want to be with you, Daniel, a time like this.”

“Goodness knows I want you, Serena; but--but for mercy sakes don't call
it a 'time like this.' Sounds as if we'd just come from the cemetery
instead of the depot. We ain't been to a funeral; we're only lookin'
for'ard to a weddin'.”

In spite of this philosophical declaration the remainder of that
afternoon was rather funereal for Captain Dan. He moped about the store,
waiting half-heartedly upon the few customers who happened in, and the
ring of the supper bell was welcome, as it promised some company other
than his thoughts.

But the promise was not fulfilled. He ate his supper alone. Mrs. Dott
had gone back to the lodge room, so Azuba said.

“I don't think she was intendin' to,” remarked the latter,
confidentially. “She said she guessed she'd 'lay down a spell'; said she
was 'kind of tired.' But afore she got upstairs scarcely, along comes
that Black automobile with that Irish 'shover man'--that's what they
call 'em, ain't it?--drivin' it and her in the back seat, and he gets
out and comes and rings the front door bell, and when I answer it--had
my hands all plastered up with dough, I did, for I was makin' pie, and
it took me the longest time to get 'em clean--when I answered it he said
that she said she wanted to see her and--”

“Here! hold on, Zuba!” interrupted her bewildered employer. “'Vast
heavin' a second, will you? You ought to run that yarn of yours through
a sieve and strain some of the 'hes' and 'shes' out of it. 'He said that
she said she wanted to see her.' Who wanted to see what?”

“Why, Barney Black's wife. She wanted to see Serena. So in she came, all
rigged up in her best clothes and--”

“How do you know they were her best ones?”

“Hey? Well, they would have been MY best ones, if _I_ owned 'em, I tell
you that. I never see such clothes as that woman has! All trimmin' and
flounces and didos, and--”

“Hi! steady there, Zuba. Keep your eye on the compass. You're gettin'
off the course again. Annette--Mrs. Black, I mean--came to see Mrs.
Dott; that's plain sailin' so far. What happened after that?”

“Why, they went off together in the automobile and Serena said to tell
you she had to go to lodge, and she'd be back when she could and not to
wait supper. That's all I know.”

The captain finished his lonely meal and returned to the store, where
he found Abel Blount's wife and their twin boys, aged eight, waiting to
negotiate for rubber boots. The boots were for the boys, but Mrs. Blount
did the buying and it was a long and talky process. At last, however,
the youngsters were fitted and clumped proudly away, bearing their
leather shoes in their hands. It was a dry evening, but to separate
the twins from those rubber boots would have been next door to an
impossibility.

“There!” exclaimed the lady, as she bade the captain good night, “that's
done; that much is settled anyhow. I'm thankful I ain't got four twins,
instead of two, Cap'n Dott.”

Daniel, entering the sale in the ledger, was thankful also. If the
lengthy Blount account had been settled he would have been still more
so.

At nine o'clock he and Sam locked up, extinguished the lamps, and closed
the Metropolitan Store for the night. Crossing the yard to the house,
which he entered by the front door, he found Serena in the sitting-room.
She was reclining upon the couch. She was tired, and out of sorts.

“Oh, dear!” she exclaimed, acknowledging her husband's greeting with a
nod, “I am just about worn out, Daniel.”

“I should think you would be, Serena. You've been makin' tracks between
here and that lodge room all to-day and yesterday, too. I should think
you'd be about dead.”

“It isn't that. I don't mind the work. It's the thanklessness of it all
that breaks me down. I give my time and effort to help the lodge, and
what does it amount to?”

“Well, I--I give in that it don't seem to me to amount to much, 'cordin'
to my figurin'. I don't care much for lodge meetin's and sociables and
such, myself. I'd rather have one evenin' at home with you than the
whole cargo of 'em.”

This statement was frank, but it was decidedly undiplomatic. Serena
sniffed contempt.

“Of course you would!” she said. “I don't get a bit of encouragement
here at home, either. I should think you'd be proud to have your
wife the head of the Chapter, presiding at meetings and welcoming the
visiting delegates and--and all.”

“I am,” hastily. “I'm proud of you, Serena. Always have been, far's that
goes. But I'm just as proud of you here in this sittin'-room as I am
when you're back of that pulpit, poundin' with your mallet and tellin'
Alphy Ann Berry to 'come to order.' Notwithstanding that you're the only
one can make her come--or go, either--unless she takes a notion. Why,”
 with a chuckle, “it takes her husband half an hour to make her go home
after meetin's over.”

Mrs. Dott did not chuckle.

“You think it's a joke,” she said. “I don't. It is the Berry woman and
her kind that make me disgusted. I'm tired of them all. I'm tired of
Trumet. I wish we were somewhere where I had an opportunity; somewhere
where I might be appreciated.”

“_I_ appreciate you, Serena.”

Serena ignored the remark. “I wish we had never settled here,” she went
on. “I'd leave in a minute, if I could. I'd like to be in with nice
people, cultivated people, intelligent, up-to-date society, where I
could have a chance to go on and be somebody. I'd like to be a leader.
I could be. Annette says I would be in a city like Scarford. She says I
'have the faculty of the born leader.' All I lack is the opportunity.”

Her husband sighed. He had heard all this before. Inwardly he wished
Mrs. Black at Scarford, or China, or anywhere, provided it was not
Trumet.

His wife heard the sigh. “There, Daniel,” she said; “I won't be
complaining. I try not to be. But,” she hesitated, “there is one thing
I'd like to ask, now that we've got your Aunt Lavinia's three thousand:
Don't you suppose I could have some new clothes; I need at least two
dresses right away.”

“Why--why, I guess likely you could, Serena. Yes, course you can. You go
see Sarah Loveland right off.”

Miss Loveland was the Trumet dressmaker. At the mention of her name
Serena shook her head.

“I don't want Sarah to make them, Daniel,” she said. “Mrs. Black says
the things she makes are awful old-fashioned; 'country,' she calls
them.”

Daniel snorted. “I want to know!” he exclaimed. “Well, I remember her
husband when his ma used to make his clothes out of his dad's old
ones. I don't know whether they was 'country' or not, but they were the
dumdest things ever _I_ saw. Country, huh! Scarford ain't any Paris, is
it? I never heard it was.”

“Well, it isn't Trumet. No, Daniel, if we could afford it, I'd like to
have these dresses made up in Boston, where Gertie gets hers. Mrs. Black
often speaks of Gertie's gowns; she says they are remarkably stylish,
considering.”

“CONSIDERIN'! What does she mean by that?”

“Don't be cross. I suppose she meant considering that they were not
as expensive as her own. DO you suppose I could go to that Boston
dressmaker, Daniel?”

Captain Dan's reply was slow in coming. He hated to say no; in fact, he
said it so seldom that he scarcely knew how. So he temporized.

“Well, Serena,” he began, “I--I'd like to have you; you know that. If
'twasn't for the cost I wouldn't hesitate a minute.”

“But we have that three thousand dollars.”

“Well, we ain't got all of it. Or we shan't have it long. I was footin'
up what I owed--what the store owes, I mean--just now, and it come to a
pretty high figure. Over twelve hundred, it was. That's GOT to be paid.
Then there's Gertie's schoolin' and her board. Course, I never tell her
we ain't so well off as we were. You and I agreed she shouldn't know.
But it takes a lot of money and--”

Mrs. Dott sat up on the couch. Her eyes snapped. “Oh!” she cried;
“money! money! money! It's always money! If only just once I had all the
money I wanted, I should be perfectly happy. If I wouldn't GO IT!”

Steps sounded on the front porch, and the patent door bell clicked and
clanged.



CHAPTER III


Next morning an astonishing rumor began to circulate through Trumet. It
spread with remarkable quickness, and, as it spread, it grew. The Dotts
had inherited money! The Dotts were rich! The Dotts were millionaires!
Captain Daniel's brother had died and left him fifty thousand dollars!
His brother's wife had died and left him a hundred thousand! It was not
his brother's wife, but Serena's uncle who had died, and the inheritance
was two hundred and fifty thousand at least. By the time the story
reached Trumet Neck it seemed to be fairly certain that all the Dott
relatives on both sides of the house had passed away, leaving the sole
survivors of the family all the money and property in the world, with a
few trifling exceptions.

Captain Dan, coming in for dinner,--one must eat, or try to eat, even
though the realities of life have been blown away, and one is moving in
a sort of dream, with the fear of awakening always present--Captain Dan,
coming into the house for dinner, expressed his opinion of Trumet gossip
mongers.

“My heavens and earth, Serena!” he cried, sinking into his chair at the
table, “am I me, or somebody else? Do I know what I'm doin' or what's
happened to me, or don't I?”

Serena, a transformed, flushed, excited Serena, beamed at him across the
table.

“I should hope you did, Daniel,” she answered.

“Well, if _I_ do, then nobody else does, and if THEY do, I don't. I've
heard of more dead relations this forenoon than I ever had alive. And
yarns about 'em! and about you and me! My soul and body! Say, did you
know you had a cousin-in-law in Californy?”

“I? In California? Nonsense!”

“No nonsense about it. You had one and he was a lunatic or a epileptic
or an epizootic or somethin', and lived in a hospital or a palace or a
jail, and he was worth four millions or forty, I forget which, and
fell out of an automobile or out of a balloon or out of bed--anyhow, it
killed him--and--”

“Daniel Dott! DON'T talk so idiotic!”

“Humph! that's nothin' to the idiocy that's been talked to me this
forenoon. I've done nothin' for the last hour but say 'No' to folks that
come tearin' in to unload lies and ask questions. And some of 'em was
people you'd expect to have common sense, too. My head's kind of wobbly
this mornin', after the shock that hit it last night, but it's a regular
Dan'l Webster's alongside the general run of heads in this town. Aunt
Laviny's will has turned Trumet into an asylum, and the patients are all
runnin' loose.”

“But WHAT foolishness was that about a cousin in California?”

“'Twa'n't foolishness, I tell you. You ask any one of a dozen folks you
meet outside the post-office now, and they'll all tell you you had
one. They might not agree whether 'twas a cousin or a grandmother or a
step-child, or whether it lived in Californy or the Cape of Good Hope,
but they all know it's dead now, and we've got anywheres from a postage
stamp to a hogshead of diamonds. Serena, if you hear yells for help this
afternoon, don't pay any attention. It'll only mean that my patience has
run out and I'm tryin' to make this community short one devilish fool at
least. There'll be enough left; he'll never be missed.”

“Daniel, I never saw you so worked up. You must expect people to be
excited. I'm excited myself.”

The captain wiped his forehead with his napkin. “_I_ ain't exactly a
graven image, now that you mention it,” he admitted. “But you and I have
got some excuse and they ain't. Haven't they been in to see you; or did
you lock the doors?”

“I have had callers, of course. Mrs. Berry was here, and Mrs. Tripp, and
the Cahoon girls, and Issachar Eldredge's wife. The first four pretended
they came on lodge business, and the Eldredge woman to get my recipe for
chocolate doughnuts; but, of course, I knew what they really came for.
Daniel, HOW do you suppose the news got out so soon? I didn't tell a
soul and you promised you wouldn't.”

“I didn't, neither. Probably that lawyer man dropped a hint down at the
Manonquit House, and that set things goin'. Just heave over one seed
of a yarn in most any hotel or boardin' house and you'll have a crop of
lies next mornin' that would load a three-master. They come up in the
night, like toadstools.”

“But you didn't tell anyone how much your Aunt Lavinia left us?”

“You bet I didn't. I told 'em I didn't know yet. I was cal'latin' to
hire a couple of dozen men and a boy to count it, and soon's the job was
finished I'd get out a proclamation. What did you tell your gang?”

“I simply said,” Serena unconsciously drew herself up and spoke with
a gracious dignity; “I said they might quote me as saying it was NOT a
million.”

Azuba entered from the kitchen, heaving a steaming platter.

“There!” she exclaimed, setting the dish before her employers; “I don't
know as clam fritters are what rich folks ought to eat, but I done the
best I could. I'm so shook up and trembly this day it's a mercy I didn't
fry the platter.”

Yes, something had happened to the Dotts, something vastly more
wonderful and surprising than falling heir to three thousand dollars and
a silver tea-pot. When Captain Daniel shut up the Metropolitan Store the
previous evening and started for the house, the bearer of the great news
was on his way from the Manonquit House, where he had had supper. When
Serena bewailed her fate and expressed a desire for an opportunity, he
was almost at the front gate, and the ring of the bell which interrupted
her conversation with her husband was the signal that Opportunity, in
the person of Mr. Glenn Farwell, Junior, newest member of the firm of
Shepley and Farwell, attorneys, of Boston, was at the door.

Mr. Farwell was spruce and brisk and businesslike; also he was young,
a fact which he tried to conceal by a rather feeble beard, and much
professional dignity of manner and expression. Occasionally, in the heat
of conversation, he forgot the dignity; the beard he never forgot. Shown
into the Dott sitting-room by Azuba, who, as usual, had neglected to
remove her kitchen apron, he bowed politely and inquired if he had the
pleasure of addressing Captain and Mrs. Daniel Abner Dott. The captain
assured him that he had. Serena was too busy glaring at the apron and
its wearer to remember etiquette.

“Won't you--won't you sit down, Mr. er--er--” began the captain.

Mr. Farwell introduced himself, and sat down, as requested. After
a glance about the room, which took in the upright piano--purchased
second-hand when Gertrude first began her music lessons--the what-not,
with its array of shells, corals, miniature ships in bottles, and
West Indian curiosities, and the crayon enlargement over the mantel
of Captain Solon Dott, Daniel's grandfather, he proceeded directly to
business.

“Captain Dott,” he said, addressing that gentleman, but bowing politely
to Serena to indicate that she was included in the question, “you
received a letter from our firm about a week ago, did you not?”

Captain Dan, who had scarcely recovered from his surprise at his
caller's identity, shook his head. “As a matter of fact,” he stammered,
“I--I only got it to-day. It came all right, that is, it got as far
as the post-office, but the postmaster, he handed it over to Balaam
Hamilton, to bring to me. Well, Balaam is--well, his underpinnin's all
right; he wears a number eleven shoe--but his top riggin' is kind of
lackin' in spots. You'd understand if you knew him. He put the letter in
his pocket and--”

“Mercy!” cut in Serena, impatiently, “what do you suppose Mr. Farwell
cares about Balaam Hamilton? He forgot the letter, Mr. Farwell, and
we only got it this morning. That is why it hasn't been answered. What
about the letter?”

The visitor did not answer directly. “I see,” he said. “That letter
informed you that Mrs. Lavinia Dott--your aunt, Captain,--was dead, and
that we, her legal representatives, having, as we supposed, her will in
our possession, and being in charge of her affairs--”

Mrs. Dott interrupted. Her excitement had been growing ever since she
learned the visitor's name and, although her husband did not notice the
peculiar phrasing of the lawyer's sentence, she did.

“As you supposed?” she repeated. “You did have the will, didn't you?”

“We had a will, one which Mrs. Dott drew some eight or nine years ago.
But we received word from Italy only yesterday that there was another,
a much more recent one, which superseded the one in our possession. Of
course, that being the case, the bequests in the former were not binding
upon the estate. That is to say, our will was not a will at all.”

Serena gasped. She looked at her husband, and he at her.

“Then we--then she didn't leave us the three thousand dollars?” she
cried.

“Or--or the tea-pot?” faltered Captain Dan.

Mr. Farwell smiled. He was having considerable fun out of the situation.
However, it would not do to keep possibly profitable clients in suspense
too long, so he broke the news he had journeyed from Boston to impart.

“She left you a great deal more than that,” he said. “In the former
will, her cousin, Mr. Percy Hungerford of Scarford, was the principal
legatee. He was a favorite of hers, I believe, and she left the bulk of
her property--some hundred and twenty thousand dollars in securities,
and her estate at Scarford--to him. But last February it appears that he
and she had a falling out. He--Mr. Hungerford--is, so I am told, a good
deal of a sport--ahem! that is, he is a young gentleman of fashionable
and expensive tastes, and he wrote his aunt, asking for money,
rather frequently. The February letter reached her when she was
grouchy--er--not well, I mean, and she changed her will, practically
disinheriting him. Under the new will he receives twenty thousand
dollars in cash. The balance--” Mr. Farwell, who, during this long
statement, had interspersed legal dignity of term with an occasional
lapse into youthful idiom, now spoke with impressive solemnity,--“the
balance,” he said, “one hundred thousand in money and securities,
and the house at Scarford, which is valued, I believe, at thirty-five
thousand more, she leaves to you, as her only other relative, Captain
Dott. I am here to congratulate you and to offer you my services and
those of the firm, should you desire legal advice.”

Having sprung his surprise, Mr. Farwell leaned back in his chair to
enjoy the effect of the explosion. The first effect appeared to be
the complete stupefaction of his hearers. Those which followed were
characteristic.

“My soul and body!” gasped Captain Dan. “I--I--my land of love! And only
this mornin' I was scared I couldn't pay my store bills!”

“A hundred thousand dollars!” cried Serena. “And that beautiful house at
Scarford! OURS! Oh! oh! oh!”

Mr. Farwell crossed his knees. “A very handsome little windfall,” he
observed, with condescension.

“We get a hundred thousand!” murmured the captain. “My! I wish Father
was alive to know about it. But, say, it's kind of rough on that young
Hungerford, after expectin' so much, ain't it now!”

“A hundred thousand!” breathed his wife, her hands clasped. “And that
lovely house! Why, we could move to Scarford to-morrow if we wanted to!
Yes, and live there! Oh--oh, Daniel! I--I don't know why I'm doing it,
but I--I believe I'm going to cry.”

Her husband rushed over to the couch and threw his arm about her
shoulder.

“Go ahead, old lady,” he commanded. “Cry, if you want to. I--I'm goin'
to do SOMETHIN' darn ridiculous, myself!”

Thus it was that Fortune and Opportunity came to the Dott door, and it
was the news of the visitation, distorted and exaggerated, which set all
Trumet by the ears next day.

Azuba's clam fritters were neglected that noon, just as breakfast had
been. Neither Captain Dan nor his wife had slept, and they could not
eat. They pretended to, they even tried to, but one or the other was
certain to break out with an exclamation or a wondering surmise, and the
meal was, as the captain said, “all talk and no substantials.” They had
scarcely risen from the table when the doorbell rang.

Azuba heard it and made her entrance from the kitchen. She had
remembered this time to shed the offending apron, but she carried it in
her hand.

“I'm a-goin',” she declared; “I'm a-goin', soon's ever I can.”

She started for the sitting-room, but the captain stepped in front of
her.

“You stay right where you are,” he ordered. “I'll answer that bell
myself this time.”

“Daniel,” cried his wife, “what are you going to do?”

“Do? I'm goin' to head off some more fools, that's what I'm goin' to do.
They shan't get in here to pester you to death with questions, not if I
can help it.”

“But, Daniel, you mustn't. You don't know who it may be.”

“I don't care.”

“Oh, dear me! What are you going to say? You mustn't insult people.”

“I shan't insult 'em. I'll tell 'em--I'll tell 'em you're sick and can't
see anybody.”

“But I'm not sick.”

“Then, I am,” said Captain Dan. “They make me sick. Shut up, will you?”
 addressing the bell, which had rung the second time. “I'll come when I
get ready.”

He seemed to be quite ready that very moment. At all events he strode
from the room, and his anxious wife and the flushed Azuba heard him
tramping through the front hall.

“What--WHAT is he going to do?” faltered Serena; “or say?”

Azuba shook her head. “Land knows!” she exclaimed. “I ain't seen him
this way since the weasel got into the hen-house. He went for THAT with
the hoe-handle. And as for what he said! Well, don't talk to ME!”

But no riot or verbal explosion followed the opening of the door. The
anxious listeners in the dining-room heard voices, but they were subdued
ones. A moment later Captain Dan returned. He looked troubled.

“It's Barney Black and his wife,” he answered, in a whisper. “I couldn't
tell THEM to go to thunder. They're in the front room, waitin'. I
suppose we'll have to see 'em, won't we?”

Mrs. Dott was hurriedly shaking the wrinkles out of her gown and patting
her hair into presentable shape.

“See 'em!” she repeated. “Of course we'll see them. I declare! I think
it's real kind of 'em to call. Daniel, do fix your necktie. It's way
round under your ear.”

They entered the parlor, Serena, outwardly calm, in the lead and her
husband following, and tugging at the refractory tie.

Mrs. and Mr. Black--scanning them in the order of their importance--rose
as they appeared. Mrs. Black was large and impressive, and gorgeous to
view. She did not look her age. Her husband was not as tall as his wife,
and did not look his height. Annette swept forward.

“Oh, my dear Mrs. Dott,” she gushed, taking Serena's hand in her own
gloved one. “We've just heard the news, Phelps and I, and we couldn't
resist dropping in to congratulate you. Isn't it wonderful!”

Serena admitted that it was wonderful. “We can hardly believe it yet,
ourselves,” she said. “But it was real nice of you to come. Do sit down
again, won't you? Daniel, get Mr. Black a chair.”

Captain Dan and Mr. Black shook hands. “Sit down anywhere, Barney,” said
the former. “Anywhere but that rocker, I mean; that's got a squeak in
the leg.”

Mr. Black, who had headed for the rocker, changed his course and sank
into an arm chair. The shudder with which his wife heard the word
“Barney,” and the glare with which Serena favored her husband, were
entirely lost upon the latter.

“We had that rocker up in the attic till last month,” he observed; “but
Serena found out 'twas an antique, and antiques seem to be all the go
now-a-days, though you do have to be careful of 'em. I suppose it's all
right. We'll be antiques ourselves before many years, and we'll want
folks to be careful of us. Hey? Ha! ha! ... Why, what's the matter,
Serena?”

Mrs. Dott replied, rather sharply, that “nothing was the matter.”

“The rocker isn't very strong,” she explained, addressing Mrs. Black.
“But it belonged to my great--that is, it has been in our family for a
good many years and we think a great deal of it.”

Mrs. Black condescendingly expressed her opinion that the rocker was a
“dear.”

“I love old-fashioned things,” she said. “So does Mr. Black. Don't you,
Phelps?”

“Yes,” replied that gentleman. His love did not appear to be
over-enthusiastic.

“But do tell us about your little legacy,” went on the lady. “Of course
we have heard all sorts of ridiculous stories, but we know better than
to believe them. Why, we even heard that you were worth a million.
Naturally, THAT was absurd, wasn't it? Ha! ha!”

Captain Dan opened his mouth to reply, but his wife flashed a glance in
his direction, and he closed it again.

“Yes,” said Serena, addressing Mrs. Black, “that was absurd, of course.”

“So I told Phelps. I said that the way in which these country people
exaggerated such things was too funny for anything. Why, we heard that
your cousin had died--that is, _I_ heard it was a cousin; Phelps heard
it was an uncle. An uncle was what you heard, wasn't it, Phelps?”

“Yes,” said Phelps. It was his second contribution to the conversation.

“So,” went on Mrs. Black, “we didn't know which it was.”

She paused, smilingly expectant. Again Captain Dan started to speak, and
again a look from his wife caused him to change his mind. Before he had
quite recovered, Mrs. Black, who may have noticed the look, had turned
to him.

“Wasn't it funny!” she gushed. “I don't wonder you laugh. Here was I
saying it was a cousin and Phelps declaring it was an uncle. It was
so odd and SO like this funny little town. Do tell us; which was it,
really, Captain Dott?”

Daniel, staggering before this point blank attack, hesitated. “Why,” he
stammered, “it was--it was--” He looked appealingly at Serena.

“Why don't you answer Mrs. Black?” inquired his wife, rather sharply.

“It was my Aunt Laviny,” said the captain.

Mrs. Black nodded and smiled.

“Oh! your aunt!” she exclaimed. “There! isn't that funny! And SO
characteristic of Trumet. Neither an uncle nor a cousin, but an aunt.
What did you say her name was?”

“Laviny?”

“Yes, I know. Laviny--what an odd name! I don't think I ever heard it
before. Was the rest of it as odd as that?”

Serena, who had been fidgeting in her chair, cut in here.

“It wasn't Laviny at all,” she said. “That is only Daniel's way of
pronouncing it. It is what he used to call her when he was a child. A--a
sort of pet name, you know.”

“Why, Serena! how you talk! She never had any pet name, far's I ever
heard. You might as well give a pet name to the Queen of Sheba. She--”

“Hush! it doesn't make any difference. Her name, Mrs. Black, was
Lavinia. She was Mrs. Lavinia Dott, and her husband was James Dott,
Daniel's father's brother. I shouldn't wonder if you knew her. She has
spent most of her time in Europe lately, but her home, her American
home, was where you live, in Scarford.”

This statement caused a marked sensation. Mrs. Black gasped audibly, and
leaned back in her chair. B. Phelps evinced his first sign of interest.

“What!” he exclaimed. “Mrs. Lavinia Dott, of Scarford? You don't say!
Why, of course we knew her; that is, we knew who she was. Everybody in
Scarford did. Her place is one of the finest in town.”

Serena bowed. Life, for her, had not offered many sweeter moments than
this.

“Yes,” she said, calmly, “so we understand. The place--er--that is, the
estate--is a PART--” she emphasized the word--“a PART of what she left
to my husband.”

“Great Scott!” exclaimed Mr. Black. His wife said nothing, but her face
was a study.

Captain Dan crossed his knees.

“I remember seein' that place after Uncle Jim first built it,” he
observed, reminiscently. “I tell you it looked big enough to me! I was
only a young feller, just begun goin' to sea, and that house looked big
as a town hall, you might say. Ho! ho! when I got inside and was sittin'
in the front parlor, I declare I was all feet and hands! didn't know
what to do with 'em.... Hey? did you speak, Serena?”

“I was only going to say,” replied his wife, “that that was a good while
ago, of course. You have been about the world and seen a great deal
since. Things look different after we grow up, don't they, Mrs. Black?”

Annette's composure, a portion of it, had returned by this time.
Nevertheless, there was an odd note in her voice.

“They do, indeed,” she said. “I remember the Dott house, of course. It
was very fine, I believe, in its day.”

Her husband interrupted. “In its day!” he repeated. “Humph! there's
nothing the matter with it now, that I can see. I wish I had as good.
Why--”

“Phelps!” snapped Annette, “don't be silly. Mrs. Dott understands what
I meant to say. The place is very nice, very attractive, indeed. Perhaps
some might think it a bit old-fashioned, but that is a matter of taste.”

“Humph! it's on the best street in town. As for being old-fashioned--I
thought you just said you loved old-fashioned things. That's what she
said, wasn't it, Dan?”

Mrs. Black's gloved fingers twitched, but she ignored the remark
entirely. Daniel, too, did not answer, although he smiled in an
uncertain fashion. It was Serena who spoke.

“I haven't any doubt it is lovely,” she said. “We're just dying to see
it, Daniel and I. I hope you can be with us when we do, Mrs. Black. You
might suggest some improvements, you know.”

“Improvements!” the visitor repeated the word involuntarily.
“Improvements! You're not going to LIVE there, are you?”

“I don't know. We may. Now, Daniel, don't argue. You know we haven't
made up our minds yet what we shall do. And Scarford is a beautiful
city. Mrs. Black has told us so ever so many times. What were you going
to say, Mrs. Black?”

The lady addressed looked as if she would like to say several things,
particularly to her husband, who was grinning maliciously. But what she
did was to smile, a smile of gracious sweetness, and agree that Scarford
was beautiful.

“And so is the place, my dear Mrs. Dott,” she added. “A very charming,
quaint old house. But--you'll excuse my saying so, won't you; you know
Phelps and I have had some experience in keeping up a city estate--don't
you think it might prove rather expensive for you to maintain?”

Serena's armor was not even dented. “Oh,” she said, lightly, “that
wouldn't trouble us, I'm sure. Really, we've hardly thought of the
expense. The Scarford place wasn't ALL that Aunt Lavinia left us, Mrs.
Black.”

“Indeed!” rather feebly, “wasn't it?”

“My goodness, no! But there! I mustn't talk about ourselves and our
affairs any more. Have you seen the lodge rooms to-day? I must find time
to run down there this afternoon for a last look around. I want this
open meeting to go off nicely. Who knows--well, I may not have the care
of the next one.”

Azuba appeared in the doorway.

“The minister and his wife's comin',” she announced.

Mrs. Dott turned.

“The minister and his wife?” she repeated. “The bell hasn't rung, has
it? How do you know they're coming here?”

“See 'em through the window,” replied Azuba, cheerfully. “They was at
the gate quite a spell. She was gettin' her hat straight, and he was
helpin' her. Here they be,” as the callers' footsteps sounded on the
porch. “Shall I let 'em in?”

“Let them in! Why, of course! Why shouldn't you let them in?”

“Well, I didn't know. The way the cap'n was talkin' when you was havin'
dinner, I thought--oh, that reminds me,” addressing the horror stricken
Daniel, “Sam was in just now and wanted you to come right out to the
store. Ezra Taylor's there and he wants another pair of them checkered
overalls, same as he had afore.”



That evening when, having closed the Metropolitan Store at an early
hour, the captain and his wife were on their way to the lodge meeting,
Daniel voiced a feeling of perplexity which had disturbed his mind ever
since the Blacks' call.

“Say, Serena,” he asked, “ain't you and Barney Black's wife friends any
more?”

“Why, of course we're friends. What a question that is.”

“Humph! didn't seem to me you acted much like friends this afternoon.
Slappin' each other back and forth--”

“Slappin' each other! Have you lost your brains altogether? What DO you
mean?”

“I don't mean slappin' each other side of the head. 'Tain't likely
I meant that. But the way you talked to each other--and the way you
looked. And when 'twa'n't her it was me. She as much as asked you four
or five times who it was that had died and you wouldn't tell, so, of
course, I supposed you didn't want to. And yet, when she asked me and
I was backin' and fillin', tryin' to get off the shoals, you barked
out why didn't I 'answer her'? That may be sense, but I don't see it,
myself.”

Serena laughed and squeezed his arm with her own.

“Did I bark?” she asked. “I'm sorry; I didn't mean to. But it did make
me cross to have her come sailing in, in that high and mighty way--”

“It's the same way she always sails. I never saw her when she didn't act
as if she was the only clipper in the channel and small craft better get
out from under her bows.”

“I know, you never did like her, although she has been so kind and nice
to me and to Gertrude. Why, we, and the minister's family, and Doctor
Bradstreet's people, are the only ones, except the summer folks, that
she has anything to do with.”

The captain muttered that he knew it but that THAT didn't make him like
her any better. His wife continued.

“I was a little put out by her to-day,” she admitted. “You see, she was
SO anxious to find out things, and SO sure we couldn't be very rich, and
SO certain we couldn't keep up Aunt Lavinia's big house, that--that I
just had to give her as good as she sent.”

Daniel chuckled. “You did that all right,” he said.

“But I wouldn't hurt her feelings--really hurt them--for the world. I
like her and admire her, and I am sure she likes me.”

“Humph! All right; only next time you get to admirin' each other
I'm goin' out. That kind of admiration makes me nervous. I heard you
admirin' Zuba out in the kitchen just before we left.”

“Azuba makes me awfully out of patience. She won't do what I tell her;
she will wear her apron to the door; she will talk when she shouldn't.
Just think what she said about you when the minister called. It was just
Providence, and nothing else, that kept her from telling the Blacks what
you said and how you acted at dinner. That's it--laugh! I expected you'd
think it was funny.”

“Well, I give in that it does seem kind of funny to me, now, though it
didn't when she started to say it. But you can't stop Zuba talkin'
any more than you can a poll parrot. She means well; she's awful
good-hearted--yes, and sensible, too, in her way.”

“I can't help it. She's got to learn her place. Just think of having her
up there at Scarford, behaving as she does.”

The captain caught his breath.

“Scarford!” he repeated. “At Scarford! Look here, Serena, what are you
talkin' about? You didn't mean what you said to that Black woman about
our goin' to Scarford to live?”

“I don't know that I didn't. There! there! don't get excited. I don't
say I do mean it, either. Aunt Lavinia's left us that lovely house,
hasn't she? We've got it on our hands, haven't we? What are we going to
do with it?”

“Why--why, I--I was cal'latin' we'd probably sell it, maybe. We've got
our own place here in Trumet. We don't want two places, do we?”

“We might sell this one, at a pinch. No, Daniel, I don't know what we
shall do yet awhile. But, one thing I AM sure of--you and I will go
to Scarford and LOOK at that house, if nothing more. Now, don't argue,
please. We're almost at the meeting. Be sure you don't tell anyone how
much money we've got or anything about it. They'll all ask, of course,
and they'll all talk about us, but you must expect that. Our position in
life has altered, Daniel, and rich folks are always looked at and talked
over. Are your shoes clean? Did you bring a handkerchief? Be sure and
don't applaud too much when I'm speaking, because last time I was told
that Abigail Mayo said if she was married and had a husband she wouldn't
order him to clap his hands half off every time his wife opened her
mouth. She isn't married and ain't likely to be, but.... Oh, Mrs. Black,
I'm SO glad to see you! It's real lovely of you to come so early.”

Daniel Dott, as has been intimated, did not share his wife's love for
lodge meetings. He attended them because she did, and wished him to, but
he was not happy while they were going on. At this one he was distinctly
unhappy. He saw Serena and Annette Black exchange greetings as if
the little fencing match of the afternoon had been but an exchange of
compliments. He saw the two ladies go, arm in arm, to the platform,
where sat the “Boston delegates.” He nodded to masculine acquaintances
in the crowd, other captives chained, like himself, to their wives' and
daughters' chariot wheels. He heard the applause which greeted Serena's
opening speech of introduction. He heard the Boston delegates speak, and
Mrs. Black's gracious response to the request for a few words from the
president of our Scarford Chapter. He heard it all, but, when it was
over, he could not have repeated a sentence of all those which had
reached his ears.

No, Captain Dan was not happy at this, the most successful “open
meeting” ever held by the Trumet Chapter of the Guild of Ladies of
Honor. He was thinking, and thinking hard. Aunt Lavinia's will had
changed their position in life, so Serena had said. She had said other
things, also, and he was beginning, dimly, to realize what they might
mean.



CHAPTER IV


“SCARFORD!” screamed the brakeman, throwing open the car door.
“Scarford!”

Mrs. Dott, umbrella in hand, was already in the aisle. Captain Dan,
standing between the seats, was struggling to get the suitcase down from
the rack above. It was a brand-new suitcase. Serena had declared that
their other, the one which had accompanied them on various trips to
Boston during the past eight years, was altogether too shabby. She had
insisted on buying another, and, the stock in the store not being
good enough, had selected this herself from the catalog of a Boston
manufacturer. Her umbrella, silk with a silver handle, was new also. So
was her hat, her gown and her shoes. So, too, was the captain's hat, and
his suit and light overcoat. There was a general air of newness about
the Dotts, so apparent, particularly on Daniel's part, that various
passengers had nudged each other, winked, and whispered surmises
concerning recent marriage and a honeymoon trip.

The suitcase, the buckle of which had caught in the meshes of the rack,
giving way, came down unexpectedly and with a thump on the seat. The
captain hurriedly lifted it. A stifled laugh from the occupants of
adjacent seats reached Serena's ears.

“What is it?” she demanded impatiently. “Aren't you coming? Do hurry.”

“I--I'm comin',” stammered her husband, thrusting his fist into the new
hat which, as it lay on the seat, had received the weight of the falling
suitcase. “I'm comin'. Go ahead! I'll be right along.”

He pounded the battered “derby” into more or less presentable shape,
clapped it on his head, and, suitcase in hand, followed his wife.

Through the crowd on the platform they passed, through the waiting room
and out to the sidewalk. There Captain Dan put down the case, gave the
maltreated hat a brush with his sleeve, and looked about him.

“Lively place, ain't it, Serena?” he observed. “Whew! that valise is
heavy. Well, where's the next port of call?”

“We'll go to the hotel first. Oh, dear, it's a shame things happened so
we had to come now. In another fortnight the Blacks would have been here
and we could have gone right to their house. Mrs. Black felt dreadfully
about it. She said so ever so many times.”

The captain made no answer. If he had doubts concerning the depths of
the Blacks' sorrow he kept them to himself. Picking up the suitcase, he
stepped forward to the curb.

“Where are you going?” demanded his wife.

“Why, to the hotel. That's where you wanted to go, wasn't it?”

“Certainly; but how were you going? You don't know where it is.”

“No, so I don't. But I can hail one of those electrics and ask the
conductor to stop when he got to it. He'd know where 'twas, most
likely.”

“Electric” is the Down East term for trolley car, lines of which were
passing and repassing the station. Daniel waved his disengaged hand to
the conductor of the nearest. The car stopped.

“Wait a minute,” said Serena quickly. “How do you know that car is going
the right way?”

“Hey? Well, of course I don't know, but--”

“Of course you don't. Besides, we don't want to go in an electric. We
must take a carriage.”

“A carriage? A hack, you mean. What do we want to do that for?”

“Because it's what everyone does.”

“No, they don't. Look at all the folks on that electric now. Besides,
we--”

“Hi there!” shouted the conductor of the car angrily. “Brace up! Get a
move on, will you?”

Mrs. Dott regarded him with dignity.

“We're not coming,” she said. “You can go right along.”

The car proceeded, the conductor commenting freely and loudly, and the
passengers on the broad grin.

“Now, Daniel,” said Serena, “you get one of those carriages and we'll go
as we ought to. I know we've always gone in the electrics when we were
in Boston, but then we didn't feel as if we could afford anything else.
Now we can. And don't stop to bargain about the fare. What is fifty
cents more or less to US?”

The captain shook his head, but he obeyed orders. A few minutes later
they were seated in a cab, drawn by a venerable horse and driven by a
man with a hooked nose, and were moving toward the Palatine House, the
hostelry recommended by Mrs. Black as the finest in Scarford.

“There!” said Serena, leaning back against the shabby cushions, “this is
better than an electric, isn't it? And when we get to the hotel you'll
see the difference it will make in the way they treat us. Mrs. Black
says there is everything in a first impression. If people judge by your
looks that you're no account they'll treat you that way. But what were
you and the driver having such a talk about?”

Captain Dan grinned. “I got the name of the hotel wrong at first,” he
admitted. “I called it the Palestine House instead of the other thing.
The driver thought I was makin' fun of him. It ain't safe to mention
Palestine to a feller with a nose like that.”

The Palatine House was new and gorgeous; built in the hope of attracting
touring automobilists, it was that dreary mistake, a cheap imitation of
the swagger metropolitan article. Scarford was not a metropolis, and
the imitation in this case was a particularly poor one. However, to the
Dotts, its marble-floored lobby and gilded pillars and cornices were
grand and imposing. Their room on the third floor looked out upon the
street below, and if the view of shops and signs and trucks and trolleys
was not beautiful it was, at least, distinctly different from any view
in Trumet.

Serena gloried in it.

“Ah!” she sighed, “this is something like. THIS is life! There's
something going on here, Daniel. Don't you feel it?”

Daniel was counting his small change.

“What say?” he asked.

His wife repeated her question, raising her voice to carry above the
noises of the street.

“Feel it! Yes, yes; and hear it, too. How we're ever goin' to sleep with
all that hullabaloo outside I don't know. Don't you suppose we could get
a quieter room than this, Serena?”

“I don't want a quiet room. I don't want to sleep. I feel as if I'd been
asleep all my life. Now, thank goodness, I am where people are really
awake. What are you doing with that money?”

“Oh, just lookin' at it, while I can. I shan't have the chance very
long, if the other folks in this town are like that hack driver. A
dollar to drive half a mile in that hearse! Why, the whole shebang
wa'n't worth more than two dollars, to buy. And then he had the cheek to
ask me to give him 'a quarter for himself.'”

“Yes, that was his tip. We must expect that. Gertrude says she always
has to tip the servants and drivers and such at college. Did you give it
to him?”

“Who? Me? I told him I was collectin' for a museum, and I'd give him a
quarter for the horse, just as it stood--or WHILE it stood. I said he'd
better take the offer pretty quick because the critter looked as if
'twould lay down most any minute.”

He chuckled. Serena, however, was very solemn.

“Daniel,” she said, “I must speak to you again about your language.
You've lived in Trumet so long that you talk just like Azuba, or pretty
nearly as bad. You mustn't say 'critter' and 'wa'n't' and 'cal'late.' Do
try, won't you, to please me?”

“I'll try, Serena. But I don't see what difference it makes. We DO live
in Trumet, don't we?”

“We HAVE lived there. How long we shall--But there, never mind. Just
remember as well as you can and get ready now for dinner.”

Her husband muttered that he didn't see where the “getting ready” came
in; he had on the best he'd got. But he washed his hands and brushed
his hair and they descended to the dining-room, where they ate a 'table
d'hote' meal, beginning with lukewarm soup and ending with salty ice
cream.

They had left Trumet the previous evening, spending the night at
Centreboro and taking the early morning train for Scarford. Two weeks
had passed since the fateful visit of young Mr. Farwell, and, though
the wondrous good fortune which had befallen the Dott family was still
wonderful, they were beginning to accept it as a real and established
fact. All sorts of things had happened during those two weeks. They had
gone to Boston, where they spent the better part of two days with
the lawyers, going over the lists of securities, signing papers, and
arranging all sorts of business matters. Serena and the attorneys did
the most of the arranging. Captain Dan looked on, understanding very
little, saying “Yes” or “No” as commanded by his wife, and signing his
name whenever and wherever requested.

After another day, spent in the Boston shops, where the new clothes
were purchased or ordered, a process which Serena enjoyed hugely and her
husband endured with a martyr's patience, they had paid a flying visit
to the college town and Gertrude. They found the young lady greatly
excited and very happy, but her happiness was principally on their
account.

“I'm so glad for you both, Daddy,” she told her father. “When I got
Mother's letter with the news the very first thing I thought was:
'There! now Father won't have to worry any more about the old store
or anything else. He can be comfortable and carefree and happy, as he
deserves to be.' And you won't worry, will you, Dad?”

The captain seemed oddly doubtful.

“I shan't if I can help it,” he said. “But I'm the most foolish chap
that ever lived, in some ways, seems so. When the business was so I had
to worry about it all the time I used to set up nights wishin' I didn't
own it. Now that we're fixed so it don't make much difference whether I
get a profit or not, I find myself frettin' and wonderin' how Nathaniel
and Sam are gettin' along. I wake up guessin' how much they've sold
since I've been away, and whether we're stuck on those canvas hats and
those middy blouses and one thing or 'nother, same as I was afraid we'd
be. I've only been away three days altogether, but it seems about a
year.”

Gertrude smiled and shook her head.

“Why don't you sell out?” she asked. “Or would no one buy? I presume
that's it.”

“No-o, that ain't it. I don't wonder you think so, but it ain't.
Cohen--the fellow that owns the Emporium--was in only the day afore we
left, hintin' around about my retirin' and so on. He didn't make any
real bid for the business, but he as much as said he'd consider buyin'
me out if I'd sell. Your mother, she'd give me fits if she knew it. She
wants me to sell; but--but somehow I can't make up my mind to. I've been
so used to goin' out to that store every mornin' and--and havin' it on
my mind that somehow I hate to give it up. Seems like cuttin' my anchor
rope, as you might say.”

“I understand. I shall feel much the same, I know, when I graduate and
my college work is over. I shall be lost for a time without it; or I
should be if it were not for John and--and my other plans. But, whether
you keep the store or not, you mustn't worry any more, Daddy dear.
Nathaniel is a clever, able fellow; every one says so. You were
fortunate to get him. Why don't you engage him permanently? With his
experience, he might make a real success of the business. Who knows?”

He could not possibly make less of a success than the captain had made,
that was fairly certain, although she did not say so. Nathaniel Bangs
was a Trumet young man who had been getting on well with a little
business of his own in Brockton, but who, owing to ill health, had
been obliged to return to the Cape the year before. Then, health much
improved, he was very glad of the opportunity to take charge of the
Metropolitan Store during its owners' short absence. Serena had thought
of him, and Serena had hired him.

Captain Dan's real reason for not selling out to the astute Mr. Cohen
he had kept to himself. His wife's hints concerning Scarford and her
discontent in Trumet were his reasons. These were what troubled him
most. He liked Trumet; he liked its quiet, easy-going atmosphere;
he liked the Trumet people, and they liked him. He had never been in
Scarford, but he was certain he should not like the life there, the kind
of life lived by the B. Phelps Blacks, at any rate. The Metropolitan
Store was, he felt, an anchor holding him fast to the Cape Cod village.
If he cut the anchor rope, goodness knows where he might drift.

On the very day of their return from the Boston trip Serena had begun to
discuss the visit to Scarford, the visit of inspection to Aunt Lavinia's
“estate.” They must go, she said; of course they must go. It was their
duty to do that, at least. How could they know what to do with the
property until they saw it? To all Daniel's feeble objections and
excuses she was deaf. Of course they could leave the house. Azuba would
take care of that, just as she always did when they were away. As for
the store, Nathaniel would be glad to remain as manager indefinitely if
they wanted him. Surely he had done splendidly with it while they were
in Boston.

He had. During the four days' absence of its proprietor the Metropolitan
Store had actually sold more goods for cash than it had sold during
any previous week that summer. Bangs was optimistic concerning its
prospects. He was loaded with schemes and ideas.

“All you need is a little push and up-to-date methods, Cap'n,” he said.
“You must advertise a little, and let people know what you've got to
sell. That's how I got rid of all that stale candy you had in the boxes
behind the showcase. I knew the Methodist folks had a Sunday school
picnic on the slate for Tuesday. Kids like candy, but candy costs money.
I got out all that stale stuff, put it up in bags at five cents apiece,
and sent the bags and Sam here to the picnic. About every kid had ten
cents or so to spend, and it didn't make any difference to him or her
whether the candy was fresh or not, so there was enough of it. If a
chocolate cream is harder than the rock of Gibraltar it lasts longer
when you're eating it, and that's a big advantage to the average young
one. Sam came back, sold out, and we've got four dollars and eighty
cents right out of the junk pile, as you might call it. The kids are
happy and so are we. There's a half-dozen dried-up oilskin coats in the
attic that I've got my eye on. The Manonquit House crowd are going off
on a final codfishing cruise to-morrow and I'll be on the dock with
those coats at a dollar apiece when they sail.”

“But--but those coats are old as Methuselah,” faltered the captain.
“They'll leak, won't they?”

“Not if it's fair weather, they won't. And, if it's rough, they're
better than nothing. You can't expect a mackintosh for a dollar.”

Daniel's method would have been to refuse selling the coats because they
“wouldn't be much good in a no'theaster.” When the codfishers returned,
enthusiastic because, although it had “drizzled” for fifteen minutes,
they had not gotten wet, he scratched his head and regarded his new
assistant with awe. Mr. Bangs' services were retained, “for a spell,
anyhow,” and the captain's principal excuse for not visiting Scarford
was knocked in the head. To Scarford they went, and at the Palatine
Hotel in Scarford they now were.

The 'table d'hote' meal eaten, the next feature of Mrs. Dott's program
was the visit to the Aunt Lavinia homestead. There was a caretaker in
charge, so the Boston lawyers told them, and Serena had written him
announcing the coming of the new owners. In spite of her husband's
protestations, another carriage was hired for the journey. Daniel was
strongly in favor of walking or going by trolley.

“Walkin'll be cheaper, Serena,” he declared, “and pretty nigh as fast,
to say nothin' of bein' more cheerful. A hack always makes me think
of funerals and graveyards, and that skeleton of a horse looked like
somethin' that had been buried and dug up. Let's walk, will you?”

But Serena would not walk.

“We must get used to carriages,” she said. “We may ride in them a great
deal from now on. And, besides, we needn't take a horse carriage.
We shouldn't have taken one before. Get one of those new kind, the
automobile ones. What is it they call them? Oh, yes--taxis.”

The taxi gave no opportunity for complaint as far as slowness was
concerned. After the first quarter of a mile dodge up the crowded street
Captain Dan shouted through the window.

“Hi!” he hailed, addressing the driver. “Hi, you! You've made a mistake,
ain't you? You thought we wanted to fly. We don't. Just hit the ground
once in a while, so we'll know it's there.”

After this the cab moved at a more reasonable speed and its occupants
had an opportunity to observe the streets through which they were
passing. The business district was being left behind and they were
entering the residential section.

Mrs. Dott seized her husband's arm.

“Look!” she cried. “Look, Daniel, quick! Do you see that? That building
there!”

“I see it. Some kind of a hall or somethin', ain't it?”

“Yes. And I'm quite sure, from what Mrs. Black said, that it is the hall
where the Scarford Guild meets. Yes, it's just as she said it was. I'm
SURE that's it. Oh, I'm glad I've seen it! Yes, and Mrs. Black said
they lived not very far from the hall. Daniel! Daniel! ask the man if he
knows where the Blacks live and if he can show us their house.”

Captain Dan obediently made the inquiry.

“Who?” grunted the driver. “Which Black? Black and Cobb, the Wee Waist
Corset feller? Sure! I know where he lives. I'll show you.”

A few moments later the cab slackened its speed.

“There you are!” said the driver, pointing. “That's Black's house. Built
two years ago, 'twas.”

Serena and Daniel looked. The house was new and commodious, a trifle
ornate in decoration, perhaps, and a bit mixed in architecture, owing to
Mrs. Black's insisting upon the embodiment of various features which
she had seen in magazines; but on the whole a rather fine house. To the
Dotts, of course, it was a mansion.

“My!” said Serena, “to think of our knowing, really knowing, people
who live in a house like that! Oh, dear!” with a sigh, “I almost wish
I hadn't seen it until after we'd seen our own. We must try not to be
disappointed, mustn't we?”

Captain Dan was surprised. “Disappointed?” he said. “Why, what do you
mean? As I recollect Aunt Laviny's place, 'twas just as good as that, if
not better. You said so yourself. You used to call it a regular palace.”

“I know, but don't you think that was because we hadn't seen many fine
houses then? I'm afraid that was it. You know Mrs. Black said it was
old-fashioned.”

“Humph! Barney--What's his name? Phelps, I mean--he said he wished his
was as good. Don't you remember he did?”

“Probably he didn't mean it. I'm not going to expect too much, anyway.
I'm going to try and think of it as just a nice old place, and then I
shan't feel bad when I see it. I'm not going to get my expectations up
or be a bit excited.”

In proof of the sincerity of this determination, she sat bolt upright
on the seat and looked straight before her. Her husband, however, was
staring out of the window with all his might.

“Say!” he exclaimed, “this is a mighty nice street, anyhow.”

“Is it? Is it really?” For a person not excited, Mrs. Dott's breathing
was short and her fingers, tightly clasped in her lap, were trembling.

“You bet it is! Hey! Why, we're slowin' up! We're stoppin'.”

The cab drew up at the curb and came to a standstill.

“Here you are,” said the driver. “This is Number 180.”

Daniel made no reply. Leaning from the window, he was staring with all
his might. Serena's impatience got the better of her.

“Well? WELL?” she burst forth. “What does it look like? Do say
something!”

The captain drew back into the carriage.

“My--soul!” he exclaimed presently. “Look, Serena.”

Serena looked, and her look was a long one. Then, her face flushed and
her eyes shining, she turned to her husband.

“Oh! Oh, Daniel!” she gasped. “It's as good as the Blacks', isn't it?
I--I do believe it's better! Get out, quick!”

The caretaker, a middle-aged man with dark hair and mutton-chop
whiskers, met them at the top of the stone steps leading to the front
door. He bowed low.

“Good afternoon, ma'am,” he said. “Good afternoon, sir. Mr. Dott, ain't
it, sir? And Mrs. Dott, ma'am. My name is 'Apgood, sir. I was expecting
you. Will you be so good as to walk in?”

He threw open the door and, bowing once more, ushered them into the
hall, a large, old-fashioned hall with lofty ceiling and a mahogany
railed staircase.

“I presume, sir,” he said, addressing the captain, “that you and the
madam would wish to 'ave me show you about a bit. I was Mrs. Dott's--the
late Mrs. Dott's--butler when she resided 'ere, sir, and she was good
enough to make me 'er caretaker when she went away, sir.”

Captain Dan, rather overawed by Mr. Hapgood's magnificent manner,
observed that he wanted to know, adding that he had heard about the
caretaking from the lawyers “up to Boston.” After an appraising glance
at the speaker, Mr. Hapgood addressed his next remark to Serena.

“Shall I show you about the establishment, madam?” he asked.

Serena's composure was a triumph. An inexperienced observer might have
supposed she had been accustomed to butlers and establishments all her
life.

“Yes,” she said loftily, “you can show us.”

Mr. Hapgood was a person of wide experience; however, he merely bowed
and led the way. Serena followed him, and Captain Dan followed Serena.

A large drawing-room, a library, a very large dining-room, five large
bedrooms--“owners' and guest rooms,” Mr. Hapgood grandly termed them,
to distinguish from the servants' quarters at the rear--billiard room,
bathroom, and back to the hall again.

“You would wish to see the kitchens, I suppose, ma'am,” said Mr.
Hapgood. “Doubtless Mr. Dott wouldn't care for those, sir. Most
gentlemen don't. Perhaps, sir, you'd sit 'ere while the lady and I go
through the service portion of the 'ouse, sir.”

Daniel, who was rather curious to see the “service portion,” partly
because he had never heard of one before, hesitated. His wife, however,
settled the question. She was conscious of a certain condescension in
the Hapgood tone.

“Of course,” she said lightly, “Cap'n Dott will not go to
the--er--service portion. Such things never interest him. Sit here,
Daniel, and wait. Now--” cutting off just in time the “Mister” that
was on the tip of her tongue and remembering how butlers in novels
were invariably addressed--“Now--er--Hapgood, you can take me to
the--ahem--kitchens.”

It was somewhat disappointing to find that the plural was merely a bit
of verbal embroidery on the caretaking butler's part, and that there was
but one kitchen, situated in the basement. However, it was of good size
and well furnished with closets, the contents of which stirred Serena's
housekeeping curiosity. The inspection of the kitchen and laundry took
some time.

Meanwhile, upstairs in the dim front hall, Captain Dan sat upon a most
uncomfortable carved teak-wood chair and looked about him. Through
the doorway leading to the drawing-room--“front parlor,” he would have
called it--he could see the ebony grand piano, the ormolu clock, and
the bronze statuettes on the marble mantel, the buhl cabinet filled with
bric-a-brac, the heavy mahogany-framed and silk-covered sofa. There were
oil paintings on the walls, paintings which foreign dealers, recognizing
Aunt Lavinia's art craving as a gift of Providence--to them--had sold
her at high prices. They were, for the most part, landscapes, inclining
strongly to snow-covered mountains, babbling brooks, and cows; or
marines in which one-third of vivid sunset illumined two-thirds of
placid sea. Of portraits there were two, Uncle Jim Dott in black
broadcloth and dignity and Aunt Lavinia Dott in dignity and black satin.

Captain Dan felt strangely out of place alone amid this oppressive
grandeur. Again, as on the memorable occasion of his first visit to the
house, he was conscious of his hands and feet. Aunt Lavinia's likeness,
staring stonily and paintily from the wall, seemed to regard him with
disapproval, almost as if she were reading his thoughts. If the portrait
could have spoken he might have expected it to say: “Here is the person
upon whom all these, my worldly possessions, have been bestowed, and he
does not appreciate them. There he sits, upon the teakwood chair which
I myself bought in Cairo, and, so far from being grateful for the gifts
which my generosity has poured into his lap, he is wondering what in the
world to do with them, and wishing himself back in Trumet.”

Mrs. Dott and the caretaker reentered the hall.

“Thank you, Mr.--er--Thank you, Hapgood,” said the lady. “That will be
all for to-day, I think. We will go now. Come, Daniel.”

Hapgood bowed. “You would wish me to stay 'ere as I've done, ma'am?” he
asked.

“Yes. You may stay, for the present. Cap'n Dott and I will pay your
regular wages as long as we need you.”

“Thank you kindly, ma'am. And might I take the liberty of saying that
if you decide to stay 'ere permanently, ma'am, and need a butler or a
manservant about the place, I should be glad to 'ave you consider me for
the position. I'm sure it would 'ave pleased the late Mrs. Dott to 'ave
you do so, ma'am.”

“Well,” said the captain, with surprising promptness for him, “you see,
Mr. Hapgood, as far as that goes we ain't intendin' to--”

“Hush, Daniel. We don't know what we intend. You know that our plans are
not settled as yet. We will consider the matter, Hapgood. Good day.”

“Good day, ma'am,” said Hapgood. “Good day, sir.”

He opened the big front door, bowed them out, and stood respectfully
waiting as they descended the steps. The taxi driver, whom the captain
had neglected to discharge or pay, was still there at the curb with his
vehicle. Serena addressed him.

“The Palatine Hotel,” she said, with great distinctness. “Come, Daniel.”

They entered the cab. Captain Dan closed the door. The driver, looking
up at Mr. Hapgood, grinned broadly. The latter gentleman glanced at the
cab window to make sure that his visitors were not watching him, then he
winked.

As the cab whizzed through the streets Serena gloated over the splendors
of their new possessions. The house was finer than she expected, the
furniture was so rich and high-toned, the pictures--did Daniel notice
the pictures?

“And the location!” she cried ecstatically. “Right on the very best
street in town, and yet, so the Hapgood man said, convenient to the
theaters and the clubs and the halls. We saw the Ladies of Honor hall on
the way up, Daniel, you remember.”

Daniel nodded. “Yes,” he admitted, “it's fine and convenient and all.
We”--with a sidelong glance at his wife's face--“we ought to get a good
rent for it if we decide not to sell; hey, Serena?”

Serena did not answer. When they reached the hotel she left her husband
to settle with the driver and took the elevator to their room. A few
minutes later the captain joined her. He looked as if suffering from
shock.

“My heavens and earth, Serena!” he exclaimed, “what do you suppose that
tax hack feller had the cheek to--”

“Sshh! shh!” interrupted the lady, who was reclining upon the couch.
“Don't bother me now, Daniel. I don't want to be bothered with common
every-day things now; I want to think.”

“Common! Everyday! My soul and body! if what that pirate charged me was
everyday, I'd be in the poorhouse in a fortni't. Why--”

“Oh, don't! Please don't! Can't you see I am trying to realize that it's
true and not a dream. That it has really happened--to ME. Please don't
talk. Do go away, can't you? Just go out and take a walk, or something;
just for a little while. I want to be alone.”

Captain Dan slowly descended the stairs. The elevator, of course, would
have been quicker, but he was in no hurry. If he must walk, and it
seemed that he must, he might as well begin at once. He descended the
stairs to the ground floor of the hotel and wandered aimlessly about
through the lobby into the billiard room, and finally to a plate glass
door upon which was lettered the word “Rathskeller.”

What a Rathskeller might be he did not know, but, as there was another
set of letters on the door and those spelled “Push,” he pushed.

The Rathskeller was a large room, with a bar at one end and many little
tables scattered about. At these tables men were eating, drinking and
smoking. A violin, harp and piano, played by a trio of Italians, were
doing their worst with a popular melody.

The captain looked about him, selected one of three chairs at an
unoccupied table, and sat down. A waiter drifted alongside.

“What'll you have, sir?” inquired the waiter.

“Hey? Oh, I don't know. Give me a cup of coffee.”

“Coffee? Yes, sir. Anything to eat?”

“No, I guess not. I've had my dinner.”

“Smoke?”

“Well, you might bring me a ten-cent cigar.”

The coffee and cigar were brought. Daniel lit the latter, took a sip
of the former and listened to the music. This was not taking a walk
exactly, but, so far as leaving his wife alone was concerned, it
answered the purpose.

The room, already well tenanted, gradually filled. Groups of men
entered, stopped to glance at the tape of a sporting news ticker near
the bar, exchanged a word or two with the bartenders, and then selected
tables. Several times the two vacant chairs at the captain's table were
on the point of being taken, but each time the prospective occupants
went elsewhere.

At length, however, two young men, laughing and talking rather loudly,
sauntered through the room. One of them paused.

“Here are a couple,” he said, indicating the chairs.

His companion, an undersized, dapper individual, whose raiment--suit,
socks, shirt, shoes, hat and tie--might comprehensively be described as
a symphony in brown, paused also, turned and looked at the chairs, then
at the table, and finally at the captain.

“Yes,” he drawled, regarding the latter fixedly, “so I see. Well,
perhaps we can't do better. This place is getting too infernally common,
though. Don't think I shall come here again. If it wasn't that they put
up the best cocktail in town I should have quit before. All right, this
will have to do, I suppose.”

He seated himself in one of the chairs. His friend followed suit. The
watchful waiter was on hand immediately.

“Good afternoon, gentlemen,” he said, bowing obsequiously.

Neither of the young men acknowledged the bow or the greeting, although
it was evident that the waiter was an old acquaintance. The symphony in
brown did not even turn his head.

“Two dry Martinis,” he said. “And mind that they ARE dry. Have Charlie
make them himself. If that other fellow does it I'll send them back.”

“Yes, sir. All right, sir. Will you have a bit of lunch with them, sir?
Caviare sandwich or--”

“No.”

“Shall I bring cigars, sir?”

“Lord, no! The last I had here nearly poisoned me. Get the cocktails and
be lively about it.”

The waiter departed. The young gentleman drew a gold cigarette case from
his pocket.

“Here you are,” he drawled, proffering the case. “Cigars!” with a
contemptuous laugh. “They buy their cigars by the yard, at the rope
walk. Fact, Monty; take my word for it.”

“Monty” laughed. “That's pretty rough, Tacks,” he declared.

“Oh, but it's so. You can actually smell the hemp. Eh? By gad, you can
smell it now, can't you?”

Captain Dan was relighting the stump of his “ten-center” which had gone
out. He had scarcely noticed the newcomers; his thoughts were far away
from Scarford and the Palatine Hotel. Now, however, he suddenly became
aware that his tablemates were regarding him and the cigar with apparent
amusement. He smiled good naturedly.

“Been runnin' her too low,” he observed. “Have to get up steam if I want
to be in at the finish.”

This nautical remark was received with blank stares. “Monty” turned his
shoulder toward the speaker. “Tacks” did not even turn; he continued
to stare. The arrival of the cocktails was the next happening of
importance.

“I say, Tacks,” observed Monty, leaning back in his chair and sipping
his Martini, “how are you getting on? Made up your mind what to do?”

“No,” shortly.

“Going to fight, are you?”

“No use. The confounded lawyers say I wouldn't have a show.”

“Humph! Low-down trick of the old woman's, wasn't it, giving you the
shake that way? Everybody thought you were her pet weakness. We used to
envy your soft snap. Did you get the go-by altogether?”

“Pretty near. Got a little something, but it was precious little.”

“Can you pull through on it?”

“'Twill be a devilish hard pull.”

“Too bad, old man. But cheer up! You'll come out on top. Have another
one of these things?”

“All right.”

More Martinis were ordered. “Monty” and his friend lit fresh cigarettes.
The former asked another question.

“Who are the lucky winners?” he inquired. “Some country cousins or
other, I know that; but who are they?”

“Oh, I don't know. Yes, I know; but what difference does it make?”

“Isn't there a girl somewhere in the crowd?”

“Yes, but--” He broke off. Captain Dan was regarding him intently.

“Is there anything I can do to make you more comfortable, Uncle?”
 drawled “Tacks,” with bland sarcasm.

Daniel was taken aback.

“Why,” he stammered, “I--I don't know's there is.”

“Shall I speak a little louder? Possibly that might help. Delighted to
oblige, I'm sure.”

This was plain enough, certainly. The captain colored. His confusion
increased.

“I--I hope you don't think I was listenin' to you and your friend's
talk,” he protested hastily. “I wasn't. Why, if--if you two would like
this table to yourself you can have it just as well as not. I can go
somewhere else. You see, I was thinkin'--when you spoke to me--I was
thinkin' there was somethin' familiar about your face. Seemed as if I'd
seen you somewhere before, that's all; and--”

The young gentleman in brown interrupted him. “You're mistaken,” he
said, “I was never there.” Then, turning to his friend, he added, with
an elaborate “Josh Whitcomb” accent: “Monty, 'taters must be lookin' up.
All aour folks have come to town to spend their money.”

Monty, upon whom, like his companion, the second cocktail--second in
this particular sense--there had been others--seemed to be having some
effect, laughed uproariously. Even the joker himself deigned to smile.
Captain Dan did not smile. He had risen, preparatory to leaving the
table; now he slowly sat down again.

“I guess I WAS mistaken,” he said gravely. “I guess you're right about
my not havin' seen you before. If I had I wouldn't have forgot where.”

Monty evidently thought it his turn to be funny.

“You have a good memory, haven't you, Deacon?” he observed.

The captain looked at him.

“That don't necessarily follow, young man,” he said. “There's some
things you CAN'T forget.”

There was a choking sound at the next table; a stout man there seemed to
be having trouble in swallowing. Those with him looked strangely happy,
considering.

“Tacks” frowned, pushed back his chair and stood up.

“Come on, Monty,” he growled. “This place is going to the dogs. They let
ANYTHING in here now.”

Daniel turned to the stout man and his party.

“That's strange, ain't it?” he said in a tone of grave surprise. “I was
just thinkin' that myself.”

Then, his cigar smoked to the bitter end, he, too, rose, and, declining
the invitations of the stout man and his friends to have something
“because he had earned it,” he walked out of the Rathskeller and took
the elevator to the third floor.

He opened the door of the room gently and entered on tiptoe, for he
thought it likely that Serena was taking a nap. She was not, however; on
the contrary, she was very wide awake.

“Where have you been?” she demanded. “I've been waiting and waiting for
you.”

Daniel chuckled.

“I've been down below in a place they call the Rat Cellar, or some such
name,” he said. “The rats was there, two of 'em, anyhow. And I'd met one
of 'em before. I know I have. I wish I could think who he was. A sort
of--”

But Serena was not listening.

“Daniel,” she interrupted, “it is all settled. I have made up my mind.”

Her voice was tremulous with excitement. Captain Dan looked at her.

“Made up your mind?” he repeated. “I want to know! What about?”

“About our plans and our future, Daniel; my opportunity has come, the
opportunity I was wishing for. It has been sent to me by Providence, I
do believe--and it would be wicked not to take advantage of it. Daniel,
you and I must move to Scarford.”

The captain gasped.

“Why--why, Serena,” he faltered. “What are you talkin' about? DON'T talk
so! Move to Scarford! Give up Trumet and--”

“Trumet! Don't mention Trumet to me. Daniel Dott, you'll never get me
back to Trumet again--to live there, I mean--never, never, NEVER!”



CHAPTER V


Captain Dan said--Well, it does not matter much what he said. He said
a great deal, of course, during that evening and the next morning, and
would have kept on saying it all the way to Trumet if his wife had not
declined to listen.

“It is no use, Daniel,” she declared calmly but firmly. “I have thought
it all out and I KNOW it is the right thing for us to do. You will think
so, too, one of these days.”

“Durned if I will! I tell you, Serena--”

“Hush! you're telling everybody in the car, and THAT isn't necessary,
at any rate. Now we won't argue any more until we get home. Then you
can say your say; but”--with discouraging candor--“it won't change my
decision a single mite. My mind is made up. A higher power than you or
me has settled everything for us. We are going to Scarford to live, and
we will go just as soon as we can get ready.”

And go they did. The captain fought a stubborn battle, surprisingly
stubborn and protracted for him, but he surrendered at last. Serena
drove him from one line of entrenchments after the other, and, at
length, when she had him in the last ditch, where, argument and
expostulation unavailing, he could only say, “No! no, I won't, I tell
you!” over and over again, she used her most effective weapon, tears,
and brought him to terms.

“You don't care,” she sobbed. “You don't care for me at all. All you
care about is just yourself. You're willing to stay here in this awful
place, you're willing to plod along just as you always have; and it
doesn't make any difference about my wishes or my hopes, or anything. If
you were like most husbands you'd be proud and glad to see me getting
on in the world; you'd be glad to give me the chance to be somebody;
you'd--”

“There! there! Serena, don't talk so. I'd do anything in this world to
please you.”

“Hush! hush! I should think you'd be ashamed to say such things. I
should think you'd be AFRAID to say them, afraid something would happen
to you--you'd be struck down or something. Oh, well! I must be resigned,
I suppose. I must give in, just as I always do. I must be satisfied to
be miserable and--and--Oh, what shall I do? What SHALL I do?”

Sobs and more sobs, frantic clutchings at the sofa pillows and
declarations that she had better die; it would be better for her and
ever so much better for everyone else if she were dead. No one would
care.

Poor Daniel, distressed and remorseful, vaguely conscious that he was
right, but conscience stricken nevertheless, hoisted the white flag.

“Hush, hush, Serena!” he pleaded. “Land sakes, don't say such
things--please don't. I'll do anything you want, of course I will. I'll
go to Scarford, if you say so. I was just--”

“I don't ask you to go there forever. I never have asked that. I only
ask you to go there and live a while and just see how we like it. That
was all I asked, and you knew it. But you won't! you won't!”

“Why, yes I will, too. I'll go--go next week, if you say so. I--I
just--”

He got no further. Mrs. Dott, wet-eyed but radiant, lifted her head from
the sofa pillow and threw her arms about his neck.

“Will you?” she cried ecstatically. “Will you, Daniel? I knew you would.
You're a dear, good man and I love you better than all the world. We
will be so happy. You see if we aren't.”

The captain was no less doubtful of the happiness than he had ever been,
but he tried to smile and to find comfort in the thought that she was
happy if he was not.

He had written Gertrude telling of her mother's new notion and asking
for advice and counsel. The reply, which came by return mail, did not
cheer him as much as he had hoped.

“It was inevitable, I suppose,” Gertrude wrote. “I expected it. I was
almost certain that Mother would want to live in Scarford. Mrs. Black
has been telling her all summer about society and club life and what
she calls 'woman's opportunity,' and Mother has come to believe that
Scarford is Paradise. You will have to go, I think, Daddy dear. Perhaps
it is just as well. Mother won't be satisfied until she has tried it,
and perhaps, after she has tried it, she may be glad to come back to
Trumet. My advice is to let her find out for herself, but, of course, if
you feel sure it is wrong, then you must put your foot down, say no, and
stick to it. No one can do that for you; you must do it yourself.”

Which was perfectly true, as true as the other fact--namely, that
Captain Dan could not “stick to it” in a controversy with his wife,
having lost the sticking faculty years before.

But, oddly enough, there was one point upon which he did stick and
refused to budge: That point was Azuba's going to Scarford with them.
Mrs. Ginn's attitude when she was told of the family exodus was a
great surprise. Serena, who broke the news to her, expected grief and
lamentations; instead Azuba was delighted.

“Well, now!” she exclaimed. “Ain't that fine! Ain't that splendid! I
always wanted to go somewhere's besides Trumet, and now I'm goin'. I
always told Labe, my husband, that if there was one thing I was jealous
of him about 'twas travelin'. 'You go from Dan to Beersheby,' I says to
him, 'any time you want to.' 'Yes,' says he--this was the last time he
was to home, three years ago--'Yes,' he says, 'and when I don't want to,
too.' 'And I,' I says, 'I have to say stuck here in Trumet like a post
in a rail fence.' 'You look more like the rail, Zuby,' he says--he's
always pokin' fun 'cause I ain't fleshy. 'Don't make no difference what
I LOOK like,' I says, 'here I be and I ain't never been further than
the Brockton cattle show since I was ten year old.' But now I'm goin' to
travel at last. My! I'm so tickled I don't know what to do. I'll start
in makin' my last fall's hat over this very night. Say, it's a good
thing you've got me to help in the goin' and the settlin', ain't it,
Sereny--Mrs. Dott, I mean.”

In the face of this superb confidence Serena, who had intended leaving
Azuba behind, lacked the courage to mention the fact. And when she
sought her husband in the store and asked him to do it, he flatly
refused.

“What!” he said. “Tell Zuba Ginn we're goin' to cast her adrift! I
should say not! Of course we can't do any such thing, Serena.”

“But what can we do with her, Daniel? We might leave her here to take
care of the place, I suppose, but that would only be for a time, until
we find somebody to buy it. Of course we can't run two places, and we'll
have to sell this one some time or other.”

Daniel, to whom the idea of selling the home of which he had been so
proud was unthinkable, ignored the question.

“You couldn't leave her here,” he declared. “She wouldn't stay. Zuba's
queer--all her tribe are and always was--but she's nobody's fool. She'd
know right off you were tryin' to get rid of her. No, it may be all
right enough to leave Nate Bangs in charge of the store, because he'd
like nothin' better, but you can't leave Zuba in the house.”

“Then what can we do with her?”

“Take her with us. She can do housekeepin' in Scarford same as she can
here, can't she?”

“Take her with us! Why, Daniel Dott! the very idea! Think of Azuba in
a place like that Scarford mansion! Think of her and that dignified,
polite Hapgood man together! Think of it!”

The captain seemed to find the thought amusing.

“Say, that would be some fun, wouldn't it?” he chuckled. “I'd risk Zuba,
though. He wouldn't do the Grand Panjandrum over her more'n once. I'd
risk her to hold up her end.”

“What do you think the B. Phelps Blacks would say if they saw Azuba
trotting through the grand front hall with her kitchen apron on?”

The mention of the name had an odd effect upon the captain. He
straightened in his chair.

“I don't care what they say,” he declared. “I don't care what the Blacks
would say, nor the Yellows nor the Blues either. If they don't like it
they can stay in their own front halls and lock the door. Look here,
Serena: Zuba Ginn has been with us ever since Gertie was born; she took
care of her when she had the scarlet fever, set up nights and run the
risk of catchin' it herself, and all that. The doctor told us that if
it hadn't been for Zuba and her care and self-sacrifice and common sense
Gertie would have died. She may be queer and hard to keep in her place,
as you call it, and a regular walkin' talkin' machine, and all that. I
don't say she ain't. What I do say is she's been good enough for us all
these years and she's good enough for me now. She ain't got any folks;
her husband is as queer as she is, and only shows up once in two or
three years, when he happens to think of it. She ain't got any home
but ours, and nobody else to turn to, and I won't cast her adrift just
because I've got more money than I did have. I'd be ASHAMED to do it.
No, sir! if Zuba Ginn wants to go to Scarford, along with us, she goes,
or I don't go myself.”

He struck the desk a violent blow with his clenched fist. Serena
regarded him with astonishment. It had been a long time since she had
seen him like this, not since the old seafaring days.

“Why--why, Daniel,” she faltered, “I didn't mean to make you cross. I--I
only thought.... Of course, she can go with us if you feel that way.”

“That's the way I feel,” said her husband shortly. Then, as if suddenly
awakening and with a relapse into his usual manner, he added, “Was
I cross? I'm real sorry, Serena. Say, don't you want some candy?
Nathaniel's just openin' a new case from Boston. Hi, Sam! Sam! bring me
a pound box of those Eureka chocolates, will you?”

Serena did not again suggest Azuba's remaining in Trumet. Neither she
nor Captain Dan referred to the subject again. Mrs. Dott was, to tell
the truth, just a bit frightened; she did not understand her husband's
sudden outbreak of determination. And yet the explanation was simple
enough. So long as he was the only sufferer, so long as only his own
preferences and wishes were pushed aside for those of his wife or
daughter, he was meekly passive or, at the most, but moderately
rebellious; here, however, was an injustice--or what he considered an
injustice--done to someone else, and he “put his foot down” for once, at
least.

So, upon the fateful day when, preceded by a wagonload of trunks and
bags and boxes, the Dotts once more drove through Scarford's streets
to the mansion which was to be their home--permanently, according to
Serena; temporarily, so her husband hoped--Azuba accompanied them. And
Azuba was wildly excited and tirelessly voluble. Even Captain Dan, the
long-suffering, grew weary of her exclamations and chatter at last.

“Say, Zuba,” he remonstrated, “is this an all-day service you're givin'
us? If it is, I wish you'd take up a collection or somethin', for a
change. Mrs. Dott and I are gettin' sort of tired of the sermon.”

“Why--why, what do you mean? I was only just sayin' I never see so many
folks all at once since that time I was at the Brockton cattle show.
I'll bet there's a million right on this street.”

“I'll take the bet. Now you start in and count 'em, and let's see who
wins. Count 'em to yourself, that's all I ask.”

Azuba, with an indignant toss of the “made-over” hat, subsided for the
time. But the sight of the Aunt Lavinia mansion, with Mr. Hapgood bowing
a welcome from the steps, was too much for her.

“Oh!” she burst forth. “Oh! you don't mean to tell me THAT'S it! Why,
it's perfectly grand! And--and there's the minister comin' to call
already! Ain't it LOVELY!”

That night, as they sat down for the first meal in the new abode, a meal
cooked by Azuba and served by the light-footed, soft-spoken, deft-handed
Hapgood, Serena voiced the exultation she felt.

“There, Daniel,” she observed, beaming across the table at her husband,
“now you begin to appreciate what it means, don't you. NOW you begin to
see the difference.”

Captain Dan, glancing up at the obsequious Hapgood standing at his
elbow, hesitated.

“Yes, sir?” said Mr. Hapgood anxiously. “What is it you wish, sir?”

“Nothin', nothin'. Why, yes, I tell you: You go out and--and buy me a
cigar somewhere. Here's the money.”

“Cigar, sir? Yes, sir. What kind do you--”

“Any kind; only get it quick.”

Then, as the door closed behind the dignified Hapgood, he added:

“I've got three cigars in my pocket now, but that doesn't matter. I had
to send him after somethin'! Say, Serena, is it real necessary to have
that undertaker hangin' over us ALL the time? Every time he looks at
me I feel as if he was takin' my measure. Has EVERY meal got to be a
funeral?”

There was no doubt that the captain noticed the difference. He noticed
it more the following day, and more still on each succeeding one.

The next evening the Blacks called--called in state. A note from Mrs.
Black, arriving by the morning's post, announced their coming. Serena
noted the Black stationery, its quality and the gilded monogram, and
resolved to order a supply of her own immediately. Also she bade her
husband don his newest and best. She did the same, and when Captain Dan,
painfully conscious of a pair of tight shoes, entered the drawing-room
he found her already there.

“My!” he exclaimed, regarding her with admiration, “you do look fine,
Serena. Is that the one the Boston dressmaker made?”

“Yes. I'm glad you like it.”

“Couldn't help likin' it. I can't hardly realize it's my wife that's got
it on. Walk around and let me take an observation. Whew! I always
said you looked ten years younger than you are. THAT rig don't spell
forty-five next January, Serena.”

Mrs. Dott sniffed.

“Don't remind me of my age, Daniel,” she protested. “It isn't necessary
to tell everyone how old I am.”

“All right. Nobody'd guess it, anyhow. But how funny you walk. What
makes you take such little short steps?”

“I can't help it. This dress--gown, I mean--is so tight I can hardly
step at all.”

“Have to shake out a reef, won't you? How in the world did you get
downstairs--hop?”

“Hush! Don't be foolish. The gown is no tighter than anyone else's. It's
the style, Daniel, and you and I must get used to it. Are those your new
shoes?”

“They certainly are. Do they look as new as they feel? I walk about the
way you do, Serena. Bein' in style ain't all joy, is it?”

“It's better than being out of it. And, Daniel, please remember not to
say 'ain't.' I've asked you so many times. We have our opportunity now
and so must improve ourselves. You're not keeping store in the country
any longer. You are a man of means, living among cultivated society
people, and you must try to behave like the ladies and gentlemen you
will be called upon to associate with.”

“Humph!” doubtfully. “I don't know as I could behave like a lady if I
tried. As for the gentleman, if you mean Barney Black--”

“I mean B. Phelps Black. Don't you dare call him Barney to-night. If you
do I shall be SO mortified. Hush! Here they are. Very well, Hapgood. You
may show them in.”

Even Serena's new gown, fine as it was and proud as she had been of it,
lost something of its glory and sank into a modest second place when
Annette appeared. Mrs. Black had dressed for the occasion. Also, she had
insisted upon her husband's dressing.

“What in blazes must I climb into a dress suit for?” demanded that
gentleman grumpily. “Going to call on Dan Dott and his wife. You don't
expect Dan to be wearing a dress suit, do you? He never wore one in his
life.”

“It doesn't make any difference what he wears. I want you to go in
evening dress.”

“But, confound it, Annette, we've been calling on those people all
summer.”

“THAT was in the country; this is not. Don't you SEE, Phelps? Can't you
understand? Those Dotts have come here to live. I did all I could to
prevent it, but--”

“WHAT?” Mr. Black interrupted with an amazed protest. “Did all you could
to prevent it! Why, you used to preach Scarford to Serena Dott from
morning till night. You were always telling her how much better it was
than Trumet. I don't believe she would ever have thought of coming here
if it hadn't been for you.”

Annette stamped her foot impatiently. “Don't you suppose I know it?” she
demanded. “That was when I never imagined there was any chance of their
really coming. But now they have come and we've got to be with them to
some extent. We've GOT to; we can't get out of it. That is why I want
them to see how people of our class dress. I can't TELL her that her
clothes are a sight, as country as a green pumpkin, but I can show
her mine, and she's clever enough to understand. And you can show her
husband. Not that that will do much good, I'm afraid. HE is the real
dreadful part of the thing. Goodness knows what he may say or do at any
time!”

Phelps grinned. Nevertheless, he donned the dress suit.

Mrs. Black had another reason, one which she did not mention, for making
this, their first, call upon the Dotts in their new home a ceremonial
occasion. It was true that they would be obliged to associate with these
acquaintances from the country more or less; the commonest politeness
required that, considering all that had gone before. But she meant there
should be no misunderstanding of the relations between the families. In
Trumet she had made Mrs. Dott her protegee because it was her nature to
patronize, and Serena had not resented the patronage. Now circumstances
were quite different; now the Dotts possessed quite as much worldly
wealth as the Blacks, but Annette did not intend to let Serena presume
upon that. No, indeed! She intended, not only by the grandeur of her
raiment and that of her husband, but by her tone and manner, to make
perfectly plain the fact that the acquaintanceship was still a great
condescension on her part and did not imply equality in the least.

But this lofty attitude was destined to be shaken before the evening was
over. The first shock came at the very beginning, and Mr. Hapgood
was responsible for it. Annette had referred, during the Trumet
acquaintanceship, to her “staff of servants,” and had spoken casually
of her cook and second girl and laundress and “man,” as if the quartette
were permanent fixtures in the Black establishment. As a matter of fact,
the only fixtures were the cook and second girl. The laundress came in
on Mondays and Tuesdays to do the washing and ironing, and the “man”
 acted as janitor's helper at the factory three days of the week. The
chauffeur was but a summer flourish; B. Phelps drove his own car eight
months in the year.

So when the door of the Dott mansion was opened by a butler--and such
a dignified, polite, imposing butler--Mrs. Black's soul was shaken by
a twinge of envy. The second shock was Serena's appearance and the
calm graciousness of her demeanor. The Boston gown was not as grand, as
prodigal of lace and embroidery, as was the visitor's, but it was in
the latest fashion and Serena wore it as if she had been used to such
creations all her life. Neither was she overawed or flurried when her
callers entered. Serena had read a good deal, had observed as much as
her limited opportunities would allow, and was naturally a clever woman
in many ways.

“Why, how do you do, Mrs. Black?” she said. “It's so good of you to
come. And to bring Mr. Black, too. You must take off your things. Yes,
you must. Hapgood, take the lady's wraps. Daniel!”

The captain, who, not being used to butlers and lacking much of his
wife's presence of mind, had started forward to assist with the wraps,
stopped short.

“Yes, Serena?” he faltered.

“Can't you ask Mr. Black to sit down?”

“Hey? Why, course I can. I judged he was goin' to sit down anyway.
Wasn't figgerin' to stand up all the evenin', was you, Bar--er--Phelps?”

“No,” replied Mr. Black. To prove it he selected the most comfortable
chair in the room.

“I had such a time to get Phelps to come,” declared Annette, sinking,
with a rustle, into the next best chair. “He wanted to see you both,
of course, and to welcome you to Scarford, but he is SO busy and has
so many engagements. If it isn't a directors' meeting it is a house
committee at the club, or--or something. You should be thankful that
your husband is not a man of affairs and constantly in demand. It was a
club meeting to-night, wasn't it, Phelps, dear?”

“'Twas a stag dinner,” observed Mr. Black. “Say, Dan, I'll have to take
you to one of 'em some time. It's a good bunch of fellows and we have
some of the cleverest vaudeville stunts afterward that you ever saw.
Last week there were a couple of coons that--”

“Phelps!” Annette interrupted tartly, “you needn't go into details. I
don't imagine Captain and Mrs. Dott will be greatly interested. What a
charming old room this is, isn't it? SO quaint! Everything looks as if
it had been here a hundred years.”

Before Serena could frame a reply to this back-handed compliment
the unconscious B. Phelps removed the greater part of its sting by
observing:

“That butler of yours looks as if he had been here a thousand. I felt as
if George the First was opening the door for me. He's a star, all right.
Did he come with the place?”

Mrs. Dott explained that Hapgood was one of Aunt Lavinia's old servants.
“She thought the world of him. Daniel and I feel perfectly safe in
leaving everything to him. Auntie found him somewhere abroad--working
for a lord or a count or something, I believe--and brought him over. He
is pretty expensive, his wages, I mean, but he is worth it all. Don't
you think so?”

Yes, Mrs. Black found it much more difficult to patronize than she
expected, and Serena was correspondingly happy. But the crowning triumph
came later. The doorbell rang, and Hapgood entered the drawing-room
bearing a tray upon which were several cards. He bent and whispered
respectfully.

Mrs. Dott was evidently surprised and startled.

“Who?” she asked.

Hapgood whispered again.

Serena rose. “Yes, of course,” she said nervously. “Yes, certainly. I
declare, I--”

“What's up?” asked her husband, his curiosity aroused. “Nothin' wrong,
is there? What's that he's bringin' you on that thing?”

He referred to the cards and the tray. His wife, who had caught a
glimpse of Mrs. Black's face, fought down her nervousness and announced
with dignified composure.

“Some more callers, that's all, Daniel,” she said. “Oh, you mustn't go,
Mrs. Black. You know them, I'm sure. I've heard you speak of 'em--of
them often. It's”--referring to the cards--“the Honorable Oscar Fenholtz
and Mrs. Fenholtz. Ask them right in, Hapgood. Daniel, get up!”

Daniel hurriedly obeyed orders. Mr. Black also rose.

“The Fenholtzes!” he observed in a tone of surprise. “Say, Dan, I didn't
know you knew them. Annette didn't say anything about it.”

Annette hadn't known of it; her expression showed that. The Honorable
and Mrs. Fenholtz were Scarford's wealthiest citizens. Mr. Fenholtz
was proprietor of a large brewery and was an ex-mayor. His wife was
prominent socially; as prominent as Mrs. Black hoped to be some day.

Hapgood reappeared, ushering in the new arrivals. The Honorable Oscar
was plump and florid and good-natured. He wore a business suit and his
shoes were not patent leathers. Mrs. Fenholtz was likewise plump. Her
gown, in comparison with Annette's, or even Serena's, was extremely
plain and old-fashioned.

She hastened over to where Serena was standing and extended her hand.

“How do you do, Mrs. Dott?” she said pleasantly. “Welcome to Scarford.
You and I have never met, of course, but I used to know Mrs. Lavinia
Dott very well indeed. And this is Mr. Dott, I suppose. How do you do?
And here is my husband. Oscar, these are our new neighbors.”

Mr. Fenholtz and the captain shook hands. Captain Dan felt his
embarrassment disappearing under the influence of that hearty shake.

“I suppose you scarcely expected callers--or calls from strangers--so
soon,” went on Mrs. Fenholtz. “But, you see, I hope we shan't be
strangers after this. I couldn't bear to think of you all alone here in
this great house in a strange place, and so I told Oscar that he and I
must run in. We live near here, only on the next corner.”

“I said you would be having your after-dinner smoke, Mr. Dott,”
 explained the Honorable, with a smile and a Teutonic accent. “I said
you would wish we was ouid instead of in; but Olga would not have it so.
And, when the women say yes, we don't say no. Eh; what is the use?” He
chuckled.

Captain Dan grinned. “That's right,” he said. “No use for the fo'mast
hand to contradict the skipper.”

Mrs. Black stepped forward.

“How do you do, Mrs. Fenholtz?” she said with unction.

“Dear me!” exclaimed Serena. “I--I'm forgetting everything. But you know
Mr. and Mrs. Black, don't you, Mrs. Fenholtz?”

Mrs. Fenholtz turned.

“How do you do, Mrs. Black?” she said. Her tone lacked the enthusiasm of
Annette's.

“Hello, Black,” said her husband. “What are you doing here? I thought
you would be at the club, listening to the--what is it?--the cabaret.
Py George, my wife says I shall not go any more! She says it is no place
for a settled man so old as I am. Ho! ho! Yet I tell her the stag dinner
is good for the beer business.”

Before B. Phelps could answer, Mrs. Black spoke.

“He wanted to go, Mr. Fenholtz,” she declared. “But he felt, as I did,
that our first duty was here. Captain and Mrs. Dott are old friends of
ours. We meet them every year at the Cape; we have a summer home there,
you know.”

Fenholtz seemed interested. “That is so,” he said. “I forgot. Dott, are
you one of those Cape Cod skippers they tell me about? I am glad of it.
I have got a boat myself down in Narragansett Bay. One of those gruisin'
launches, they call them. But this one is like the women, it will gruise
only where and when it wants to, and not where I want to at all. There
is something the matter with the engine always. I have had egsperts--ah,
those egsperts!--they are egsperts only in getting the money. When they
are there it will go beautifully; but when they have left it will not go
at all. I wish you could see it.”

Captain Dan was interested, too.

“Well,” he said, “I'd like to, first rate. I've got a boat of my own
back home; that is, I used to have her. She was a twenty-five foot
cat and she had a five-horsepower auxiliary in her. I had consider'ble
experience with that engine. Course, I ain't what you'd call an expert.”

“I am glad of that. Now I will explain about this drouble of mine.”

He went on to explain. In five minutes he and the captain were head over
heels in spark plugs and batteries and valves and cylinders. Mr.
Black endeavored to help out with quotations from his experience as
a motorist, but his suggestions, not being of a nautical nature, were
ignored for the most part. After a time he lost interest and settled
back in his chair.

Meanwhile the three ladies were engrossed in other matters. Mrs.
Fenholtz asked to be shown the house; she had not seen it for a long
time, she said, and was much interested. Annette suddenly remembered
that, she also was “mad” to see it. So Serena led a tour of inspection,
in which Mr. Hapgood officiated as assistant pilot and superintendent of
lighting.

After the tour was at an end, and just before the party descended to the
drawing-room, Mrs. Fenholtz turned to Serena and said:

“Mrs. Dott, are you interested in club matters; in women's clubs, I
mean?”

Serena's answer was a prompt one.

“Indeed I am,” she said. “I have always been interested in them. In
fact, I am president of the Trumet Chapter; that is, I was; of course, I
resigned when I came here.”

Mrs. Fenholtz looked puzzled.

“Trumet Chapter?” she repeated.

“Why, yes, the Chapter of the Guild of the Ladies of Honor. The order
Mrs. Black belongs to.”

“Oh!” in a slightly different tone. “Oh, yes, I see.”

“I'm terribly interested in THAT,” declared Serena enthusiastically. “If
you knew the hours and hours I have put in working for the Guild. It is
a splendid movement; don't you think so?”

“Why--why, I have no doubt it is. I don't belong to it myself. I was
thinking of our local club, our Scarford women's club, when I spoke. I
thought perhaps you might care to attend a meeting of that with me.”

“I should love--” began Serena, and stopped.

Mrs. Black, who was standing behind Mrs. Fenholtz, was shaking her head.
The last-named lady noticed her hostess' hesitation.

“But of course,” she went on, “if you are interested in the Ladies of
Honor you would no doubt prefer visiting a meeting of theirs. In that
case Mrs. Black could help you more than I. She is vice-president of
the Scarford Branch, I think. You are vice-president, aren't you, Mrs.
Black?”

Annette colored slightly.

“Why--why, yes,” she admitted; “I am.”

Serena was surprised.

“Vice-president?” she repeated. “Vice-president--I--I--must have made a
dreadful mistake. I introduced you as president at that Trumet meeting.
I certainly thought you were president.”

Now, as a matter of fact, if Mrs. Black had not specifically said that
she was president of the Scarford Chapter, she had led her acquaintances
in Trumet to infer that she was; at all events, she had not corrected
Serena's misapprehension on the night of the meeting. She hastened to do
so now.

“Oh, no!” she said. “I noticed that you made a mistake when you
introduced me, but, of course, I could hardly correct you publicly, and,
when it was all over, I forgot. I am only vice-president, just as Mrs.
Fenholtz says.”

Mrs. Fenholtz smiled. “Well, I am not even an officeholder in our club,”
 she said, “although I was at one time. I have no doubt you will prefer
to be introduced by a vice-president rather than a mere member; and I am
sure Mrs. Black is planning for you to attend one of the Guild meetings,
so I mustn't interfere.”

Annette was visibly flurried. The Scarford Chapter was the one subject
which she had carefully avoided that evening. But between it and the
Woman's Club there was a bitter rivalry, and, although she had not been
at all anxious to act as sponsor for her friend from the country,
now that Mrs. Fenholtz had offered to do so and had placed the
responsibility squarely on her shoulders, she could not dodge.

“Why--why, of course,” she said. “That was understood. We have had so
many things to talk about this evening that I had really forgotten it,
my dear Mrs. Dott. I had indeed! When,” she hesitated, “when could you
make it convenient to attend one of our meetings? Of course I know how
busy you are just now in your new home, and I shall not be unreasonable.
I shouldn't, of course, expect you to attend the NEXT meeting.”

“Oh,” said the unconscious Serena, “I'm not so busy as all that. I could
go to the next meeting just as well as not. I should love to.”

They entered the drawing-room, to find Captain Dan and the Honorable
Oscar still deep in the engine discussion and Mr. Black sound asleep in
his chair. Roused by his indignant wife, he drowsily inquired if it
was time to get up, and then, becoming aware of the realities of the
situation, hastily explained that he had been thinking about business
affairs and had forgotten where he was.

“Going, Annette, are you?” he asked.

Annette tartly observed that she was going, and added that she judged it
high time to do so. Mrs. Fenholtz said that she and her husband must be
going, also.

“But we shall hope to see a great deal of you and Mr.--I should say
Captain Dott,” she said. “You must dine with us very soon. I will set an
evening and you mustn't say no.”

“That is right,” said Mr. Fenholtz heartily. “Captain, some of these
days you and I will take a gouple of days and go down and look at that
boat. If she does not go then, we will put an 'egspert' in her and sink
them both. What?”

Altogether, it was a wonderful evening. The only fly in the ointment was
Azuba, who appeared just as the visitors were at the door, to announce
that “that foolhead of a grocer's boy” hadn't brought the things she
ordered and what they was going to do for breakfast she didn't know.

“I could give you b'iled eggs,” she added, “but Captain Dan'l made such
a fuss about them we had yesterday that I didn't dast to do it without
askin' you. I wanted to have some picked-up fish, but they didn't keep
none but the hashed-up kind that comes in pasteboard boxes, and I'd just
as soon eat hay as that.”

On the way home Mrs. Black divided her discourse into two parts, one a
scorching of her husband for falling asleep and making her ridiculous
before the Fenholtzes, and the other a sort of irritated soliloquy
concerning “those Dotts” and the way in which they had been loaded upon
her shoulders.

“I did my best to keep the Guild out of the conversation,” she said,
“but that Fenholtz woman had to drag it in, and now, of course, I've
got to take that Dott person to the next meeting and introduce her to
everybody, and I suppose I shall have to see that she is made a member.
Oh, dear! I almost wish I had never seen Trumet.”

B. Phelps grunted. “Humph!” he said. “If the Fenholtzes take them up I
don't see what you've got to kick about. You've been trying to get in
the Fenholtz set yourself for the last three years. Maybe you can do it
now.”



CHAPTER VI


The Scarford Chapter of the Guild of the Ladies of Honor was not as
large a body as Mrs. Black in the exuberance of her Trumet conversation
had led Serena to think. In reality, its membership was less than a
hundred. It was formed in the beginning by a number of seceders from the
local Women's Club, who, disappointed in their office-seeking ambitions
and deeming the club old-fashioned and old-fogyish in its ideas, had
elected to form an organization of their own. They had affiliated
with the national order of the Ladies of Honor, chiefly because of the
opportunity which such a body offered for office holding and notoriety.
The members were not drawn from the oldest families of Scarford nor from
those whose social position was established. They were chiefly the
wives and daughters of men who had made money rather suddenly; would-be
geniuses whose genius had not been recognized as yet; women to whom
public speaking and publicity were as the breath of their nostrils;
extravagants and social climbers of all sorts.

The purposes of the organization, outside those specified in the
constitution of the parent body, were rather vague. Ex-Mayor Fenholtz
expressed a rather general opinion when he said:

“The Ladies of Honor? Sure! it is a place where the women go who think
their husbands don't appreciate them. If I was one of those husbands I
should appreciate their having that place. They might stay at home if
they didn't. That would be a galamity.”

The ladies of the Scarford Chapter made it a point to be always abreast
of the times. Theirs was not a suffrage organization because, as many
of them said, the belief in suffrage was so common nowadays. Their motto
was “Advancement.” Just what sort of advancement seemed to make little
difference.

The next meeting--that is, the meeting to which Serena had been
invited--was one of the few at which men were permitted to be present.
The Blacks called at the Dott mansion with the car, Mr. Black not
acting as driver this time, and the journey to the hall was made in that
vehicle. It was not a lively journey, so Captain Dan thought. He and B.
Phelps occupied the folding seats facing the two ladies and Mr. Black
maintained a gloomy silence all the way. As for Annette and Serena, they
talked and talked upon subjects miles above the head of the captain.
Mrs. Black did most of the talking; Serena was content to listen and
pretend to understand.

“This is to be an open meeting, Mrs. Dott,” said Annette graciously.
“You see, we have open meetings, just as you do in Trumet, although
I doubt if you find much resemblance between the two. You'd scarcely
expect that, would you? Ha! ha! It is a good thing,” she added,
addressing the occupants of the carriage in general, “for these husbands
of ours to be shown occasionally what their wives are capable of. Here
is our Chapter building. Phelps, give Mrs. Dott your arm.”

The Chapter building proved to be not quite up to Serena's expectation.
It was a building, of course, but the Chapter occupied only two or three
rooms on the third floor, the other floors being occupied by offices of
various sorts. The largest room, that which Mrs. Black dignified by the
title of “Assembly Hall,” was partially filled when they entered.
Some sixty women of various ages, with a sprinkling of men among them,
occupied the chairs on the floor. Upon the speakers' platform half a
dozen ladies in radiant attire were chatting volubly with another, an
imposing creature in crimson silk, who surveyed the audience through a
gold lorgnette, and whose general appearance reminded Daniel of one of
the stuffed armchairs in the parlor of their new home.

“That is Mrs. Cornish, the speaker of the evening,” whispered Annette.
“She is one of our most brilliant members.”

“Yes,” replied Dan'l, to whom the information had been imparted, and
upon whom the crimson silk had made an impression; “yes, she--she does
look sort of--sort of brilliant.”

“But I thought the Chapter was larger than this,” said the puzzled Mrs.
Dott. “I thought Scarford had one of the largest Chapters.”

“Oh, no, not the largest, merely one of the best. Our motto always has
been quality not quantity. And now will you excuse me? They are waiting
for me on the platform. I will see you when the open meeting is over.
Phelps, find good seats for Mr. and Mrs. Dott.”

She bustled away to the platform. The gloomy B. Phelps found seats for
the guests and himself and sank heavily down beside them. Daniel, who
had been gazing about him with curiosity, whispered a question.

“What do they do at these things, Barney--Phelps, I mean?” he asked.
“Are they like lodge meetings at home? This is my first trip here, you
know.”

“Humph!” grunted his companion. “You're in luck.”

“Talk, don't they?”

“Talk! Good Lord! Say, Dan, if I get to sleep and you notice Annette
looking this way, nudge me, that's a good fellow.”

He settled himself in his chair and closed his eyes. Daniel turned to
his wife.

“Serena,” he murmured. “Say, Serena, don't you think it is a
queer-lookin' crowd? Seems to me I never saw such clothes or so many
different kinds of hair. Look at that woman's skirt. It's tore all up
one side.”

“Sshh! Don't speak so loud. That's the latest style.”

“What! THAT? Well, I--”

“Sshh! It's the latest style, I tell you. Haven't you seen the fashion
magazines? All the new dresses are made that way.”

“Yours ain't.”

“Well, I--I'm not as young as that woman is.”

“You wouldn't wear a thing like that if you were as young as Gertie; and
she wouldn't either, not if I saw it first. I never saw such folks as
these at Trumet.”

“Of course you didn't. Trumet isn't Scarford. We are in society now,
Daniel. We mustn't show our ignorance.”

“Humph! I'd rather show my ignorance than--Hello, the doin's are goin'
to commence.”

The Chapter president, a Mrs. Lake, advanced to the desk, smote it
fiercely with a gavel and demanded order. The hall, which had been
buzzing like a colony of June bugs, gradually grew still. Then Mrs. Lake
opened the meeting. She delivered a short speech. Mrs. Black, in lieu of
the secretary, who was absent, read the minutes. Then there were motions
and amendments and excited calls for recognition from “Madam President.”
 It was livelier than Daniel had expected.

But soon the woman in crimson silk was introduced. Mrs. Cornish bowed in
recognition of the gloved applause, and proceeded to talk... and talk...
and talk....

At first Captain Dan endeavored to pay strict attention to the address.
Its title was “The Modern Tendency,” and the tendency in this case
seemed to be to say as much as possible about nothing in particular.

Daniel found his attention wandering and his eyes closing. They opened
at intervals as the applause burst forth, but they closed between
bursts. The tremendous enthusiasm at the end, however, awoke him for
good, and he remained awake until the close of the “open meeting,” a
marked contrast to Mr. Black, who slumbered to the finish.

When it was over Annette descended from the platform and came hurrying
to them.

“How did you enjoy it, Captain Dott?” she purred.

Daniel rather dubiously admitted that he guessed 'twas first rate, far's
he could make it out. His wife was enthusiastic; she affirmed that it
was splendid.

“I'm sure we couldn't help enjoying it, Mrs. Black,” she said. “Everyone
of us. Didn't you enjoy it, Mr. Black?”

“Sure!” replied Phelps promptly. “Great stuff!”

His wife swooped upon him like a swallow on a fly.

“You?” she snorted contemptuously. “You didn't hear a word of it. I only
hope Mrs. Cornish wasn't watching you, as I was. And now,” she added,
turning to Serena, “comes the other part, the important part. Captain
Dott, there is to be a short business meeting in a few minutes, and men
are, of course, excluded. Phelps, will you have James drive Captain Dott
home? You had better go with him, and then come back again and wait for
us. Captain Dott, I am going to borrow your wife for a short time.”

Daniel, not knowing exactly what to say, said nothing. Phelps seized
his arm and led him down to the carriage. The driver received his
instructions and the homeward ride began.

“I say, Barney,” observed Daniel, after waiting for his escort to
volunteer a word or two, “are all their meetings like that?”

Mr. Black snorted. “No,” he declared; “some are a d----d sight worse.”

It was after eleven when Serena returned. Her face was flushed and
shining with excitement. She did not wait to remove her hat, but rushed
into the parlor where her husband sat in lonely magnificence. The
solicitous Hapgood, who had happened in every few minutes to see if his
employer “wished anything,” had been ordered to “go aloft and turn in.”
 The tone in which the order was given made an impression and Hapgood had
obeyed.

“Oh, Daniel!” she cried. “What do you think? I've been made a member of
the Chapter!”

Captain Dan should perhaps have been enthusiastic. If he was, he
suppressed his feelings wonderfully.

“Have you, Serena?” he observed. “I want to know!”

He listened while his wife dilated upon the wonderful happenings at
the meeting and the glorious consequences which she felt sure were to
follow. Just before putting out the light he asked one more question.

“That--that Mrs. Lake?” he said. “She's a grass widow, ain't she--isn't
she, I mean?”

“Yes, what of it?”

“Oh, nothing. Only I thought you were kind of prejudiced
against--against--”

“I've had a good many prejudices, I suppose, like other people. But Mrs.
Lake's husband was a brute; Mrs. Black told me so. He must have been,
for she is perfectly lovely. I've met them all, and they are ALL lovely.
They're going to call and--and everything. Oh, Daniel, this means so
much to us!”

Captain Dan turned out the gas.

“Yes, Serena,” he said slowly. “I shouldn't wonder if it did.”

The calls began the very next afternoon. Mrs. Black, having made up her
mind that the taking of the Dotts under her wing was a necessity, made a
virtue of that necessity and explained to her fellow members of Scarford
Chapter that Serena and Daniel were really very nice people. “A little
countrified, of course. You must expect that. But they are very kind
hearted and immensely wealthy--oh, immensely.” She was kind enough to
add that Serena was quite an exceptional person and an advanced thinker,
considering her opportunities. “The club people were going to take them
up, and so I felt that we should get in first,” she explained. “If they
should prove to be impossible we can drop them at any time, of course.”

In making this explanation she did not mention the Fenholtzes, and yet
if it had not been for the call of the Honorable Oscar and his wife it
is extremely doubtful if Serena would have become a member of Scarford
Chapter so soon. Also it is doubtful if the little dinner given by the
Blacks to Mr. and Mrs. Dott would have taken place within the week. At
that dinner Captain Dan wore his first dress suit. He bought it ready
made at one of the Scarford shops and it fitted him remarkably well,
considering. What he could not do, however, was to feel at ease in it.

“Good land, Serena!” he said, when the dressing was completed and they
were about to start for the dinner, “don't pick at me so everlastin'ly.
Don't you suppose I know I look as stiff and awkward as if I'd froze?
You won't let me put my hands in my pockets, and all I can do is hang
'em around loose and think about 'em, and this blessed collar is so high
I can't scarcely get my chin over it. I'm doin' my best, so don't keep
remindin' me what I look like all the time.”

“I don't care what you say, Daniel,” declared his wife. “The clothes
are just what you ought to wear, and if you would only forget them for a
little while you would look all right.”

“But I can't forget. I know the clothes are all right. It's me that's
all wrong. My red face stickin' over the top of this collar looks like
a fireman's shirt on a white fence. I tell you I ain't used to this kind
of thing. I wasn't born to it and it don't come natural to me.”

“Neither was Mr. Black 'born to it,' but he has got used to it and so
can you if you will try.”

“Oh, I'll try. But I'm beginnin' awful late in life. I know you'll be
ashamed of me, Serena. You ought to have a different husband.”

“I don't want a different one. I wouldn't change you for anybody. But I
do think you ought to try and help me as much as you can. My chance
has just come; I am only just beginning and I mean to go on and improve
myself and our position in life all I can. All I ask you to do is not to
hold me back by complaining.”

The “little dinner” was not as little as it might have been. Annette
had taken pains to make it as elaborate and as costly an affair as she
could. This was not solely on the Dotts' account. She had invited
Mr. and Mrs. Fenholtz and the impression was to be made upon them,
if possible. But, unfortunately, the Fenholtzes did not attend. Mrs.
Fenholtz wrote that she had a prior engagement and sent regrets, just as
she had previously done on the occasions of Mrs. Black's other “little”
 functions.

However, the leading lights of Scarford Chapter attended and the display
of gowns and coiffures was more varied and elaborate than at the open
meeting. Serena, seated at the right hand of B. Phelps, was in her
glory. She felt that at last she was in touch with the real thing.
Daniel, sandwiched between Annete and Mrs. Lake, was not as happy. The
necessity of forgetting his clothes and remembering his grammar was
a heavy burden. His conversation was limited to “Yes” and “No” and “I
shouldn't wonder,” and after a time the ladies ceased in their efforts
to make him talk and carried on an animated dialogue across his shirt
front.

After dinner there was music and bridge. Daniel was fond of music, but
most of the songs, sung by a thin young lady with a great deal of hair
and a decollete gown, were in a language which he did not understand,
and the piano solos seemed to him to be made up of noise and gymnastics
with very little melody. He watched Serena, however, who, in turn, was
watching Mrs. Lake and the rest; when they applauded, she applauded and
the captain followed suit.

Bridge was an unknown quantity to both of them, and they sat and looked
on while Mrs. Black made it “without” and found fault with her partner
when they lost. The thin young lady, who had obliged with the vocal
selections, asked the captain if he played “nullos.” Daniel, who was not
sure whether “nullos” was a musical instrument or a game, replied that
he wasn't sure, but he didn't think he did; after which he retired into
the corner to avoid further questioning.

They reached home about two o'clock, and the captain fell sound asleep
in the taxi and had to be shaken into consciousness when the machine
reached the Dott door.

“My soul, Serena,” he said, when they were upstairs in the bedroom,
“don't those folks ever go to bed? There was stuff enough to eat at
that dinner to last the average family through three meals. Time I had
finished the ice cream I was ready to curl up like a cat in front of the
fire; but the rest of them seemed to be just startin' in to be lively.
Are we goin' to keep this up very long? If we are, I'll have to sleep in
the daytime, like a fo'mast hand on night lookout.”

“But wasn't it splendid?” explained his wife. “Weren't they cultivated,
brilliant people? You and I never went to anything like THAT dinner
before, Daniel Dott.”

The captain admitted that they never did. “Could you make anything out
of that game they were playin'?” he asked. “What was it they called it?”

“Bridge. No, I couldn't, but I'm going to. I'm going to learn it just as
soon as I can. Mrs. Black says everybody plays it now.”

Her husband chuckled. “Those that don't play it had better not try,”
 he observed. “Judgin' from what I saw to-night, if they do try they get
into trouble. That Lake woman was givin' that poor little bald-headed
fellow she was playin' with fits most of the time. Whenever they won
she patted herself on the back, and when they didn't she said it was
his fault. He ought to have 'echoed' or hollered back--or somethin'. One
time she put down a card and he put another kind of a one on it, and
she glared at him and said, 'Havin' no clubs?' and he had one that he'd
forgot. He spent the next ten minutes beggin' her pardon, but 'twas a
good thing SHE didn't have a club. She'd have used it on him if she
had. He was all shriveled up like a frostbitten cranberry when they got
through.”

After they were in bed he said, “Serena, what was that black stuff they
had on the toast at the beginnin' of that supper? Looked like tar, but
it tasted kind of salty and good.”

“Don't say supper, Daniel. It was a dinner. All city people have dinner
at night. That was caviar on the toast. I've read about it. It comes
from Russia.”

Silence for a moment. Then Captain Dan said reflectively, “Caviar?
Caviar, eh? I've heard of that somewhere before; where was it? Yes, yes,
I know. 'Twas a caviar sandwich the waiter asked that young fellow I met
in the Rat Cellar to have. I never found out who that young fellow was,
and yet I know I've met him somewhere before. I wish I could remember
where it was. My memory is failin' me, I guess; must be gettin' old.
Can't you remember, Serena?”

But his wife bade him stop talking and go to sleep.

The next day there were more calls, and Serena was asked to attend a
committee meeting as a guest. She attended it and returned more full of
Chapter enthusiasm than ever. She announced that she might be asked to
prepare a paper to be read before the Chapter, and that she intended
to study and prepare for it. Study and prepare she did, and, between
dodging callers, or helping to entertain them, and keeping out of his
wife's way while she was busy with the encyclopedias which she had taken
from the library, the captain began to feel somewhat deserted. Hapgood's
company was too stately to be congenial, and Daniel sought refuge in the
kitchen, where Azuba, as usual, was always ready to talk.

Azuba was brimming over with the novelty of city life. She had been to
the theater once already since her arrival, and to the moving picture
show three times.

“Don't talk to ME,” she said. “If them pictures ain't the most wonderful
things that ever was, then _I_ don't know. _I_ never expected to
see such sights--soldiers paradin', and cowboys a-ridin', and houses
a-burnin', and Indians scalpin' 'em! I was so worked up I hollered right
out.”

“I should think you would. An Indian scalpin' a house is enough to make
anybody holler.”

“They didn't scalp the house; what sort of foolishness would that
be--the idea! They scalped the folks IN the house. That is, they
would have scalped 'em, only along come the cowboys wavin' pistols and
hurrahin'--”

“Could you hear 'em hurrah?”

“No, but I could see 'em. And the way they went for them Indians was a
caution. And--Oh, say, Captain Dott, there was one set of pictures there
made me think of you. 'Twas all about some people that wanted to go into
society. She had a paralyzed father and they had a child, a real pretty
girl, and, would you believe it, they commenced to neglect their child
and go off playin' cards and dancin' and carousin' around, and the child
was took down sick and the poor paralyzed grandfather--”

“Grandfather? Thought you said it was a father.”

“'Twas the WOMAN'S father--the child's grandfather. Well, anyhow, the
poor thing had to take care of it, and the nurse went to sleep and the
father come home and found her dyin'--”

“Who, the nurse?”

“No, no, the child. The nurse wa'n't sick; but the child was terrible
sick.”

“What was the matter with the child; paralysis, too?”

“I don't know what was the matter with it. 'Tain't likely 'twas
paralysis. You get me so mixed up I shan't know what I AM sayin' pretty
soon. Well, anyhow, what happened was that the child's mother and father
neglected it on account their fashionable goin's-on, and the child up
and died. 'Twas the most affectin' thing. There was the child a-dyin',
and the mother and father cryin', and the old grandfather goin' all to
pieces--”

“All to pieces! That's worse than paralysis. Hold on a minute, Azuba!
Was all this in the picture?”

“Yes.”

“And you paid to see it?”

“Course I paid to see it. They wouldn't let me in for nothin', 'tain't
likely.”

“Well, seems to me you've made a mistake. If cryin' and misery is what
you want, I don't doubt you can find a lot of funerals to go to for
nothin'. But what was there about all this mess of horrors that made you
think of me?”

“Oh, I don't know, unless the way you and Mrs. Dott are goin' in for
society in Scarford. Course your child is grown up, so that's different,
though, ain't it?”

“Yes, and there isn't any paralysis in the family, so far as I know.
That's a mercy. Don't you get paralysis, Azuba. If you do, it will take
you longer to get breakfast than it does now.”

“That's all right. You ought to be thankful you've got me to get
breakfast. If I wa'n't here you'd have to get it yourself, I cal'late.
Your wife's too busy these days, and that Hapgood man wouldn't do it. I
know that.”

Relations between the butler and Azuba were already somewhat strained.
He considered her a rude and interfering person and she considered that
he would bear watching.

“He's always recommendin' folks for us to trade with,” she told Captain
Dan. “What business is it to him who we trade with?--unless he gets
a little somethin' for himself out of it. He won't do it more than
once--not if I catch him at it. Don't talk to me about that Hapgood! I
wouldn't trust one of them foreigners, anyhow.”

The invitation to dine with the Fenholtzes came about a week after the
dinner at the Blacks'. Daniel, who opened the letter containing the
invitation, was very much pleased. He liked the Fenholtzes at first
sight and felt sure he should like them better on further acquaintance.
But when Serena came back from the lodge meeting--the first regular
meeting which she had attended since becoming a member--she received the
news rather coldly.

“When is it they want us?” she said. “Next Tuesday night? Well, we could
go, I suppose, but I don't believe we shall. Mrs. Lake said something
about coming around that evening to help me read my paper and criticise
it.”

The captain was surprised and troubled. “She could come some other time,
couldn't she? I think 'twas real kind of the Fenholtzes to ask us. Seems
to me we ought to go. You and I haven't even been to pay back that call
yet.”

“I know it. I've meant to, but I've been so busy. Besides, I don't know
whether it is worth while or not. The Fenholtzes have got a great deal
of money, but all the Chapter people say they are sort of back numbers.”

However, she decided to accept the invitation, and they went in state.
But the state was largely on their part. The dinner was a very simple
affair compared to the elaborate spread of the Blacks, and the two or
three people whom they met were quite different from Mrs. Lake and
her friends. Captain Dan enjoyed himself hugely. He sat next to Mrs.
Fenholtz at the table, and her quiet conversation on every-day subjects
he could understand. Before the dinner was over he was thoroughly at
ease, and when later on, in company with the Honorable Oscar and the
male guests, he sat smoking in the library, he found himself spinning
yarns and joking as freely as if he had been in the back room of the
Metropolitan Store in Trumet. The shouts of laughter from the library
could be heard in the parlor, and Serena grew nervous.

“Your husband must be very entertaining,” said Mrs. Fenholtz. “I haven't
heard Mr. Fenholtz laugh so heartily in a long time.”

Mrs. Dott was fearful that Daniel might be making himself ridiculous.
She didn't mention her fears. Her own remarks were delivered with a
great deal of dignity, and she quoted Mrs. Black and the encyclopedia
often. On the way home she took her husband to task.

“What in the world were you talking about with those men?” she demanded.
“I never heard such a noise as they made. I do hope you didn't forget
yourself.”

The captain rubbed his chin. “I don't know but what I did forget myself,
Serena,” he replied. “I know I had a good time and never thought about
my clothes after the first ten minutes. Could you hear 'em laughin'? I
was tellin' em' about Azuba's goin' to the movin' pictures then.”

His wife was shocked. “And Azuba is our cook,” she said, “and they know
it. I don't know what sort of servants they think we have. They must
think you're pretty familiar with them.”

“Good land, Serena! I've been familiar with Zuba all my life. If I was
to put on airs with her she'd take me down in a hurry.”

Mrs. Dott sighed. “I'm afraid you did forget yourself,” she declared.
“I think if you could hear what the Fenholtzes are saying about us now
you'd be ashamed. I'm sure I should.”

And at that very moment Mr. Fenholtz was saying: “That man Dott is all
right. I have not laughed so for years. And he has common sense, too. I
like him.”

His wife nodded. “So do I,” she said; “and I think I should like Mrs.
Dott, too, if she had not been spoiled by Annette Black and the rest of
those foolish women she associates with. I don't mean to say that Mrs.
Dott is completely spoiled yet, but she will be soon, I'm afraid, unless
I can make her realize that she is beginning all wrong here in Scarford.
If she could only have gone to the Woman's Club first I think she might
understand, but now I'm afraid it's too late.”

At the next meeting of the Chapter Serena read her paper. She
mounted the platform with fear and trembling. She left it exalted and
triumphant. The paper had been applauded and she had been congratulated
by her fellow members. Annette was enthusiastic and Mrs. Lake and the
other leaders equally so. Stories of the “vast” wealth inherited by
the Dotts had been circulated freely, and these, quite as much as the
wonderful paper, were responsible for Serena's bound into popularity.

But the popularity was there, and the unconscious Serena believed it to
be real. That meeting was the beginning of her obsession. Thereafter she
talked chapter and society and opportunity and advancement, and ate them
and drank them, too--at least the meals--those at home--seemed to the
captain to be made up of very little else. Their evenings alone together
became few and fewer. When they were not entertaining callers they
were calling. Captain Dan actually began to feel at home in his evening
clothes; a good deal more than he did in his night clothes, so he
told his wife. Breakfast, which, in the beginning of their Scarford
residence, had been served at seven-thirty, was now an hour later, and
even then Daniel frequently ate alone.

Then came the reception idea. Annette--she and Mrs. Dott were calling
each other by their Christian names now--had dropped the hint concerning
it. She had said that a good way in which to repay social obligations
was by doing it all at once, by giving a dinner, or reception, or a tea,
to which everyone should be invited. Serena decided that the reception
was perhaps the better, all things considered. And so preparations for
the reception began. There was to be a collation, and when this item
of information was imparted to Azuba the kitchen became a maelstrom of
activity in which Captain Daniel could no longer find rest and refuge.

“But, Zuba,” he remonstrated, “what do you think's comin' here; a drove
of hyenas? You've cooked enough already to victual a ship halfway across
the ocean. These folks eat sometimes at home. You don't think they're
comin' here to make up for six months' starvation, do you?”

“Don't talk to me!” was all the satisfaction he got. “I've heard about
what they had to eat over there at Barney Black's, and I don't mean
for folks to say that they went hungry when they come here. Don't say
another word. I don't know now whether it was a cup full of sugar or a
pinch of salt I put in, or the other way 'round. Cookin'! Don't talk to
ME.”

The captain found it practically impossible to talk to anybody. Hapgood
was busy; Serena was busier, and Azuba was busiest of all. Wherever he
went he seemed to be in the way, and when he fled for walks up and down
the streets the crowds of strange faces made him feel lonelier than
ever. On the evening before that upon which the reception was to be held
he returned from one of these walks to find Serena in tears.

“Why, good gracious sakes!” he exclaimed. “What's the matter?”

“Matter!” sobbed his wife. “Oh, dear me! Everything is the matter! I'm
so tired I don't know what to do, and Annette and Mrs. Lake were coming
here to-morrow to help me, and now they can't come. They'll be at the
reception, of course, but they can't come before; and there's so much to
get ready and I don't know whether I'm doing it right or not. What SHALL
I do!”

Daniel shook his head. “Seems to me I'd do the best I could and let it
go at that,” he advised. “If they ain't satisfied I'd let 'em stay the
other way. I wish I could help you, but I don't know how.”

“Of course you don't. You don't have any sympathy for the whole thing,
and I know it. I feel it all the time. You haven't any sympathy for ME.”

The captain sighed. He had a vague feeling that he could use a little
sympathy himself, but with characteristic unselfishness he put that idea
from his mind.

“I guess what you need is a manager,” he said. “Somebody that's used to
these sort of things that could help you out. I wish I knew where there
was one.”

Hapgood appeared and announced that dinner was served. Serena hurriedly
dried her eyes and they descended to the dining-room. Just as they were
about to take their seats at the table the doorbell rang. Hapgood left
the room and returned a few moments later bearing a card on a tray.
Serena took the card, looked at it, and then at her husband. Her face
expressed astonishment and dismay.

“Why, Daniel!” she exclaimed under her breath. “Why, Daniel! WHO do you
suppose is here?”

Her husband announced that he didn't know. He took the card from her
hand and looked at it. It was a very simple but very correct card, and
upon it in old English script was the name “Mr. Percy Hungerford.”

Daniel's face reflected the astonishment upon his wife's.

“My soul!” he muttered. “Percy Hungerford! Why, that's--that's the
cousin; the one Aunt Laviny cut out of her will; the one that would have
had all this place and all the money if we hadn't got it. I thought he
was in New York somewhere. Black said he was, and now he's here. What in
the world does he want?”

Mrs. Dott rose. “I don't know,” she gasped. “I can't imagine. But
I suppose we must see him. We've got to. Did you ask him to wait,
Hapgood?”

Hapgood bowed respectfully. “Mr. Hungerford is in the drawing-room,
ma'am,” he said.

To the drawing-room moved Serena, followed by her husband.

“Good evening, Mr. Hungerford,” said the lady, with a partially
successful attempt at calmness. “How do you do? My husband and I--”

She paused. The expression on Mr. Hungerford's face was an odd one. She
turned to Daniel, and his expression was odder still. He was standing in
the doorway gazing at the visitor, his eyes opening wider and wider.

Mr. Percy Hungerford was the young man whom his friend had addressed as
“Tacks,” the young man with whom Captain Dan had exchanged repartee in
the Rathskeller of the Palatine Hotel.



CHAPTER VII


Of the two men, Mr. Hungerford was the first to recover presence of
mind. Presence of mind was one of the qualities upon which he prided
himself, and it was a very awkward situation to which he could not rise.
For just an instant the color rushed to his cheeks as he recognized the
captain and saw that the latter recognized him. Then:

“Why, how do you do, Captain Dott?” he said. “By Jove, this is
extraordinary, isn't it! Strange that relatives shouldn't know each
other when they meet. How do you do?”

He stepped forward with extended hand. Captain Dan, who had expected
almost anything but this bland cordiality, scarcely knew what to say or
do. He took the proffered hand mechanically and dropped it again.

“Well!” he stammered. “Well!--I declare I--I didn't expect to--”

He paused. Mrs. Dott, who had been watching this scene in bewilderment,
spoke before he could finish his sentence.

“Why, what is it?” she asked. “Have you--”

Mr. Hungerford smiled. “Your husband and I have met before,” he
explained. “Just a casual meeting and we weren't aware of each other's
identity. I'm afraid I was not as cordial as I might have been on that
occasion, Captain. I was a bit tired and rather out of sorts. I hope
you'll forgive me, I'm sure.”

Daniel hesitated; then he smiled.

“Why, I guess I can forgive my half if you can yours,” he said slowly.

Before the puzzled Serena could ask another question the visitor turned
to her.

“I'm sure you must be very much surprised to see me here,” he said. “I'm
somewhat surprised to be here myself. I've spent a greater part of the
past month in New York and have only just returned--that is, to stay. I
fully intended to call before, and should if I had been in town. How are
you getting on? How do you like the dear old place? Ah!” with a sigh, as
he seated himself and looked about him, “how familiar it all seems!”

The Dotts looked at each other. Serena sank into a chair. Captain Dan
remained standing.

“Does it?” said the former rather feebly.

“Indeed it does. One almost expects to see Auntie coming in at the door.
Dear old Auntie! I can scarcely realize that she has gone.”

Again Serena looked at Daniel and he at her. This was so strange,
so different from the attitude which a disappointed legatee might be
expected to assume that neither of the pair knew exactly how to reply.
But Mr. Hungerford did not appear to notice the look or the hesitation.

“This house seems like home to me,” he said. “I've spent so many happy
hours here. When old Hapgood opened the door for me I almost ordered him
to take my bags to my room. Really I did. That would have been droll,
wouldn't it?”

He laughed languidly. Serena admitted that it would have been droll.
Captain Dan remained silent as before.

“Are--are you stopping at the hotel?” queried Mrs. Dott.

“Not yet. In fact, I'm not really stopping anywhere. I've just arrived.
I must be hurrying back to dinner, I suppose, but I couldn't resist
coming here first. It seemed the natural thing to do.”

Voices were heard in the hall. One of the voices was Azuba's; she was
informing Mr. Hapgood that if that soup didn't go back on the stove
pretty soon it might just as well be on ice. The words were distinctly
audible, and Serena colored. Mr. Hungerford rose.

“I'm sure I must be keeping you from your own dinner,” he said. “Don't
let me do that for the world.”

“Why--why--” faltered Serena. She looked appealingly at Daniel, and the
latter's instinctive hospitality asserted itself. He had disliked the
young man “Tacks” when he met him in the Rathskeller. Now that “Tacks”
 had become Mr. Percy Hungerford, Aunt Lavinia's cousin and his own
distant relative, the dislike was only partially abated. But to turn him
away from the door hungry seemed wrong somehow.

“Hadn't you better--” he began.

“Have dinner with us?” finished his wife.

Mr. Hungerford protested.

“Oh, I couldn't think of it,” he declared. “No doubt you have guests--”

“Oh, no, we haven't. We're all alone and it would be no trouble at all.
We should like to have you stay. Shouldn't we, Daniel?”

“Sartin, no trouble at all,” said Daniel heartily. “Like to have you
first rate.”

“Well, if you insist. It is a frightful imposition--I shouldn't think of
it, of course, but--well, thank you so much.”

So Hapgood received orders to lay another plate, and Mr. Hungerford,
still murmuring protests, suffered himself to be conducted to the
dining-room.

All through the meal the captain regarded him with puzzled curiosity.
That he had come to the house merely for a friendly call he could
scarcely believe. He had heard little or nothing of the conversation
between Hungerford and his friend at the table in the Rathskeller, and
yet the attitude of the former on that occasion had not indicated
a temperament likely to forgive “dear Aunt Lavinia” so freely or
to display such angelic cordiality toward those who had come into
possession of her property. But the cordiality remained unchanged, and
the visitor, so far from bearing a grudge toward his more fortunate
relatives, continued to treat them as though they were near and dear
friends, and do everything in his power to relieve their constraint and
to make himself agreeable. The dinner ended and they adjourned to the
drawing-room, with Captain Dan's mental question “What in the world is
this young chap really up to?” still unanswered.

Serena had asked herself that same question when the caller first came,
but now she was beginning to be ashamed of her suspicions and to think
them unfounded. Mr. Hungerford was agreeable; there was no doubt of
that. Also he was good-looking, in an effeminate sort of way, and his
conversation was fluent and cultured. He led Serena into speaking of
the Chapter and her work there, and he displayed a knowledge of and an
interest in that Chapter and its members which was very gratifying.

The coming reception was mentioned, and the visitor's interest in that
was more gratifying still. It was evident that receptions and society
functions generally were matters of every day, or every night,
occurrence to him. He asked Mrs. Dott who was to assist her in
receiving, and when she answered the question his approval of the
selections was unqualified. He suggested one or two little ideas which
he said might add to making the affair a success. Serena welcomed the
suggestions as a starving man might welcome a meal.

“That'll be lovely,” she said, “and we can do it just as well as not.
And I had thought of having some bridge or something afterwards; but
Annette--Mrs. Black, I mean--didn't seem to think bridge would be just
the thing after a reception. And there's music; I know we really ought
to have music, and I had meant to have somebody play the piano. But the
woman I wanted can't come, and now I don't know what to do. What would
you think about that, Mr. Hungerford?”

Mr. Hungerford suggested hiring one or two professional musicians. “A
violinist, or harpist, or both, perhaps,” he said. “Music is always, as
you say, a great addition to such affairs, Mrs. Dott. I happen to know
of a young fellow who plays exceptionally well, and his sister is really
a very accomplished performer on the harp. Of course they should be
engaged in merely a professional capacity. They are not persons who
would mingle with our set, but they're not at all objectionable,
really.”

The diplomatic phrasing of this remark had its effect. It indicated
that Mrs. Dott's “set” was an exclusive one and, incidentally, that the
accomplished and polished Mr. Hungerford considered his host and hostess
as social equals.

“There!” exclaimed Serena. “I think that will be just fine. And you are
the first one, Mr. Hungerford, to think of it. Do you suppose you could
get these--these--er--persons you speak of to come and play for us?”

“I think so. I have befriended the young man in various ways, and he is,
if you will excuse my saying so, under some obligations to me. I should
be glad to make the attempt if you wish it, Mrs. Dott.”

“Cost somethin', won't it?” observed Captain Dan casually. Mr.
Hungerford regarded him with well-bred surprise.

“Why, of course,” he said, “there will be some expense. I think fifty
dollars will cover the bill. The usual rate for musicians of their class
is somewhat higher.”

There was no doubt that the captain was surprised. “Fifty DOLLARS!” he
repeated. “Why--”

His wife interrupted. “That will be all right, Mr. Hungerford,” she
said. “That will be quite satisfactory.”

“Of course, there are many whom you can obtain for less, and, if you
feel that that figure is too high, I shall be glad to try elsewhere. I
have had little experience outside of the best, but--”

Serena interrupted again. “We don't want anybody but the best,” she
declared, emphatically. “Be still, Daniel. This isn't Trumet.”

Daniel drew a long breath. “There ain't much doubt of that,” he
observed. “But, all right, Serena, if you and Mr. Hungerford think it's
all right, I guess it is. I'm more used to hirin' sailors than I am
folks to play the harp.”

“Music,” went on Mr. Hungerford, “is almost a necessity, in these days,
when everyone dances. Is this a formal reception, or had you intended
clearing a floor for dancing, Mrs. Dott?”

Mrs. Dott had not intended any such thing; she had not thought of it.
But she concealed the fact from her visitor with remarkable presence of
mind.

“Oh, of course!” she said.

The conversation continued, a conversation limited to Mr. Hungerford and
his hostess, while Captain Dan remained a silent and amazed listener.
The young gentleman was invited to attend the reception, Serena making
many apologies for the informality of the invitation, and the guest
expressing himself as delighted.

“Of course,” he said, “I wouldn't intrude for the world, but I don't
feel like an intruder in this house, where I have spent so many happy
hours. Feeling as I do, I'm going to make another suggestion which,
under different circumstances, might be considered an impertinence. I am
at leisure to-morrow--in fact, all this week--and if there is anything
that I can do to help you and Cousin Daniel, in this matter of the
reception or any other, I shall be at your service. I do hope you
will permit me to help and that you will not consider me presuming in
offering to do so.”

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