made as
that had been made--though in secret. It was a sacred pledge.

It was no easy matter for any of the Ball household to consider the
coming of Ida May with serenity. Prudence, at heart, shrank from the
claimant on her hospitality almost as much as Sheila did. If Cap'n
Ira hid his perturbation better than the others, he nevertheless
hobbled about with a very solemn countenance.

"I swan!" he muttered within Sheila's hearing. "It's most like there
was a corpse in the house. This ain't no way to live. I do wish
Elder Minnett could have minded his own business and let well enough
alone. Let the girl talk, and other folks, too. Trying to stop
gossip is like trying to put your finger on a drop of quicksilver.
There won't be no good come o' that girl being here. That's as sure
as sure."

The elder's car came wheezing up the hill again about the middle of
the forenoon. He did not alight himself, but Ida May needed the
presence of nobody to lend her assurance. She hopped out of the car
with her bag and flaunted her cheap finery through the gate and in
at the front door.

Her reception at this end of the house marked the unmistakable fact
that Prudence and Cap'n Ira received her as a stranger rather than
in a confidential way.

"Well, Aunt Prue! For you are my aunt whatever you may say," was
Ida May's prologue. "And you are my uncle," she added, her
greenish-brown eyes flashing a glance at the grimly observant
captain. "I must say it's pretty shabby treatment I've got from you
so far. But I don't blame you--not at all. I blame that girl and
Tunis Latham."

"Avast there!" put in Cap'n Ira so sternly and with so threatening a
tone of voice and visage that even Ida May was silenced. "We've let
you come here, my girl, because Elder Minnett asked us to; and not
at all because our opinion of you is changed. Far from it. You're
here on sufferance and you'd best be civil spoken while you remain.
Ain't that the ticket, Prudence?"

His wife nodded, in full accord with his statement of the situation,
although she could not bear to look so sternly on any person as
Cap'n Ira now looked at Ida May.

"Well! I like that!" sniffed the girl, tossing her head, but she
actually shrank from the captain.

"Furthermore, as regards Tunis Latham, you was to say nothing about
him outside of this house if you was let come here. And I warn you,
we don't care to hear nothing in his disfavor _in_ this house."

"Oh! I can see he's a favor