not raise a dollar
on Latham's Folly, if I wanted to. So I am pretty well tied up, you
see.

"But the schooner is doing well. That is, I mean, business is good,
Ida May. Other things being equal, I will make more money with her
the way I am doing now than I could in any other business. My line
is the sea; I know that. I am fitted for it.

"And if I had invested Uncle Peke's legacy and kept on fishing, or
tried for a berth in a deep bottom somewhere, I would not get ahead
any faster or make so much money. Besides, long voyages would take
me away from home, and, after all, Aunt Lucretia is my only kin and
she would miss me sore."

"I am sure she would," said the girl with sympathy.

"But all ain't plain sailing," added the young skipper wistfully. "I
am running too close to the reefs right now to crow any."

"But I am sure you will be successful in the end. Of course you
will!"

"That's mighty nice of you," he said, smiling down into her vivid
face. "With you and Aunt Lucretia both pulling for me, I ought to
win out, sure enough.

"You can't fail to like her," he added. "If you just get the right
slant on her character, I mean, Ida May. Hers has been a lonely
life. Not that there has not almost always been somebody in the
house with her. But she has lived with her own thoughts. She reads a
great deal. There is not one topic I can broach of which she has
not at least a general knowledge. I was sent away to school, but
when I came home vacations I brought my books and she read them all.

"And she is a splendid listener." He laughed. "You'll find that out
for yourself, I fancy. And I know she likes people to talk to
her--when they have anything to say. Tell her things; that is what
she enjoys."

In spite of his assurances, Sheila Macklin approached the old, brown
house behind the cedars with much secret trepidation. Although Aunt
Lucretia had a neighbor's girl come in to help her almost daily, she
had preferred to prepare the dinner on this occasion with her own
hands. And, perhaps, she did not care to have the neighbor's child
around when the supposed Ida May came to the house for the first
time.

They saw her watching from the side door--a tall, angular figure in
a black dress. Her hair was done plainly and in no arrangement to
soften the gaunt outline of her face, but there was much of it, and
Sheila longed to make a change in that grim coiffure.

The woman smiled so warmly when she saw the two approach t