pin' 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 y