ite with you," muttered Ida May.

"Then trim your sails according," admonished the old man. "In
addition, you mentioned the young woman we already got here in a way
we don't like none too well. I want to impress on your mind that it
was only through her saying she was agreeable to your coming here
that we agreed to the elder's request and let you come."

"She did, eh?" cried Ida May, flouncing in her chair. "Well, I don't
thank her."

"No. I cal'late you ain't of a thanking disposition," said Cap'n
Ira. "But you like enough won't drop your bread butter-side down.
That's all."

Ida May, startled by his speech, stared with less impudence at the
old man. For his part, the captain watched her pretty closely, and
he had met and judged too many people in his day not to form
gradually, as the hours passed, a decided opinion regarding Ida May.

Nor did he cling to his first impression--the one made in haste and
some vexation, when she had first tried to thrust herself into the
Ball household and demanded the place filled by Sheila Macklin. This
girl certainly was not insane. But with all her apparent smartness,
Cap'n Ira easily saw that she was not intelligent--that she had
scarcely ordinary understanding. Beside the newcomer's shallow
nature and even more shallow endowments, Sheila seemed to be from a
different world.

"I swan!" whispered Cap'n Ira to Prudence some time later. "The
difference between them two girls! They ain't to be spoke of in the
same county, I declare. Look at that one, Prudence," he said, with a
side glance at the newcomer. "Ain't she a sight with them thin and
flashy clothes?"

"I can't see anything about her that looks like any of the Honeys,
let alone Sarah."

"Huh! No. Only that her hair's sorter red," returned Cap'n Ira,
"like Sarah's was."

The visitor proved her position in the household by sitting idly in
a rocking-chair looking over some pictures which were on the table
or staring out of the window. She offered to do nothing for
Prudence. But, of course, Ida May was not very domestic. Living in a
furnished room and working behind the counter in a department store
does not develop the domestic virtues to any appreciable degree.

She did not see Sheila until dinner was on the table and she was
called to the meal with Cap'n Ira and the old woman. The stiff,
little bow with which Ida May favored the girl in possession was
returned by the latter quite as formally.

Sheila had regained c