and me, he's got to say it in your hearing."

The elder was a tall and bony man with a stiff brush of gray beard
and bushy hair to match, which seemed as uncompromising as his
doctrinal discourses in the pulpit. He was an old-fashioned
preacher, but not wholly an old-fashioned thinker.

Sheila had thought, on the few occasions when she had met him away
from his pulpit, that there was an undercurrent of humanity in him
quite equal to that in Cap'n Ira Ball, but his personal appearance
and rather gruff manner made it difficult for one to be sure of the
measure of his tenderness.

How Elder Minnett appeared in the sick room or in the house of
sorrow, she did not know. She could not very well imagine his being
tender at any time with the sinner at whom he thundered from the
pulpit. Secretly she trembled at the old clergyman's approach.

"Well, Elder!" was the warm greeting of Prudence at the front door
when the rattling automobile came to a wheezing halt before the
gate. "Do tell! Ira said he see you coming up the road, and I was
determined you shouldn't drive by without speaking. Do come in."

"I propose to, Sister Ball," was the grim-lipped reply.

He came into the house and took the proffered chair in the sitting
room. They spoke of the weather, of the tide, and of the clam
harvest. The farm crops back of Big Wreck Cove did not interest
Cap'n Ira.

"Well," said the elder finally, clearing his throat, "I've come up
here on an errand you can possibly guess, Cap'n Ira and Sister
Ball."

"Maybe we can and maybe we can't," observed the captain with a
countenance quite as wooden as the elder himself displayed.

"I come on behalf of that young woman who was here to see you the
other day."

"It's my opinion you'd done better to have gone to the insane asylum
folks about her," rejoined Cap'n Ira.

"Now, Ira!" said Prudence softly.

"Seeing it as you do, Cap'n Ira," the elder remarked quite equably,
"I conclude that you might think that. But you formed your judgment
in the heat of--well, not anger, of course--but without sufficient
reflection."

"Humph!" grunted Cap'n Ira noncommittally.

"I have talked with that young woman on two occasions," said the
elder.

"With what young woman?" interrupted Cap'n Ira.

"With the girl staying at the Widow Pauling's. The girl who claims
to be your niece."

"You'd better talk with the other young woman," said Cap'n Ira
sternly. "Ida May! Just you come in here and sit dow