that--It sounds like--"

"It's teacher," whispered Bos'n, who also had been listening. "She's
come to find out why I wasn't at school. You tell her, Uncle Cy."

Georgianna returned to announce:

"It's Miss Dawes. She says she wants to see you, Cap'n. She's in the
settin' room."

The captain drew a long breath. Then, repeating his command to Emmie to
stay where she was, he left the room, closing the door behind him. The
latter procedure roused Bos'n's indignation.

"What made him do that?" she demanded. "I haven't been bad. He NEVER
shut me up before!"

The schoolmistress was standing by the center table in the sitting room
when Captain Cy entered.

"Good evenin'," he said politely. "Won't you sit down?"

But Miss Dawes paid no attention to trivialities. She seemed much
agitated.

"Cap'n Whittaker," she began, "I just heard something that--"

The captain interrupted her.

"Excuse me," he said, "but I think we'll pull down the curtains and have
a little light on the subject. It gets dark early now, especially of a
gray day like this one."

He drew the shades at the windows and lit the lamp on the table. The red
glow behind the panes of the stove door faded into insignificance as
the yellow radiance brightened. The ugly portraits and the stiff old
engravings on the wall retired into a becoming dusk. The old-fashioned
room became more homelike.

"Now won't you sit down?" repeated Captain Cy. "Take that rocker; it's
the most comf'table one aboard--so Bos'n says, anyhow."

Miss Phoebe took the rocker, under protest. Her host remained standing.

"It's been a nice afternoon," he said. "Bos'n--Emmie, of course--and I
have been for a walk. 'Twan't her fault, 'twas mine. I kept her out of
school. I was--well, kind of lonesome."

The teacher's gray eyes flashed in the lamplight.

"Cap'n Whittaker," she cried, "please don't waste time. I didn't come
here to talk about the weather nor Emily's reason for not attending
school. I don't care why she was absent. But I have just heard of what
happened at that meeting. Is it true that--" She hesitated.

"That Emmie's dad is alive and here? Yes, it's true."

"But--but that man last night? Was he THAT man?"

The captain nodded.

"That's the man," he said briefly.

Miss Dawes shuddered.

"Cap'n Whittaker," she asked earnestly, "are you sure he is really her
father? Absolutely sure?"

"Sure and sartin."

"Then she belongs to him, doesn't she? Legally, I mean?"