n. You are as
much interested as we be, I guess. _This_ is Ida May Bostwick,
Elder Minnett," he added, as Sheila entered.

"Yes, yes. I have had the pleasure," said the elder, bowing gravely
without offering to shake hands. He turned abruptly to Prudence.
"You are quite convinced in your own mind, Sister Ball, that the
young woman at the Pauling's is not your niece?"

"Why, Elder Minnett," returned Prudence, "how _can_ she be? Ida May
is Sarah Honey's only child, and Sarah was only distantly related to
me. There never was another girl in the family--not like that one
that came here the other day, for sure!" And the old woman shook her
head emphatically.

"That girl you got down there at the port, Elder, is crazy--crazy as
a loon," put in Cap'n Ira harshly.

"I am not so sure of that," the clergyman said shortly.

"I swan! Beg your pardon, Elder. No offense. But you don't mean to
say that she seems sane and sensible to you?"

"Sane--yes! As for being sensible, that is another thing," confessed
Elder Minnett.

"Huh! What do you mean by that?" asked Cap'n Ira curiously.

"She has told her story in full to me, and told it twice alike,"
said the grim-visaged minister, looking at Sheila as he answered the
query. "An insane person is not so likely to do that, I believe. But
she is not what I would call a sensible young woman. Not at all."

"I should say not!" gasped Prudence.

"But I have heard her, and I have reflected on what she has said. I
do not see, if she is an impostor, how she could have made up that
story."

"Then she _must_ be loony," muttered Cap'n Ira.

"I presume she told the same story to you that she did to me,"
pursued Elder Minnett. "I do not understand Tunis Latham's part in
it, but the rest of her story seems quite reasonable."

"Reasonable?" repeated Prudence, with some warmth. "Do you call it
reasonable to say what she did about Ida May?"

"In speaking of the young woman's reasonableness I mean in regard to
the personal details she gave me. What she said in her anger to, or
of, other people has no influence whatsoever on my judgment."

"Well, it has on mine!" exclaimed Cap'n Ira. "I'd have drove out a
dozen gals that spoke as she did to Prudence and Ida May--crazy or
not!"

"You would be wrong, Cap'n Ball," said the elder severely.

"Well, let's have the p'ints the girl makes!" growled the old
shipmaster. "I will listen to 'em."

Elder Minnett bowed formally and began Ida May's sto