into hers.

"Don't you?" she repeated.

"We-ll, I--I don't know as I'd want to go so far as to say that. I
presume likely her face might not stop a meetin'-house clock on a
dark night, but--"

As they were in a secluded spot where a high hedge screened them
from observation Miss Maud playfully boxed her parent's ears, a
proceeding which he seemed to enjoy hugely.

But there was reason in the captain's caution, nevertheless. Miss
Maud's "teasing" concerning the widow had set Jed to thinking. The
"trial" month was almost up. In a little while he would have to
give his decision as to whether the little Winslow house was to
continue to be occupied by Barbara and her mother, or whether it
was to be, as it had been for years, closed and shuttered tight.
He had permitted them to occupy it for that month, on the spur of
the moment, as the result of a promise made upon impulse, a
characteristic Jed Winslow impulse. Now, however, he must decide
in cold blood whether or not it should be theirs for another eleven
months at least.

In his conversation with Captain Sam, the conversation which took
place immediately after the Armstrongs came, he had stoutly
maintained that the latter would not wish to stay longer than the
month, that his own proximity as landlord and neighbor would be
unbearable longer than that period. But if the widow found it so
she had so far shown no evidence of her disgust. Apparently that
means of breaking off the relationship could not be relied upon.
Of course he did not know whether or not she wished to remain, but,
if she did, did he wish her to do so? There was nothing personal
in the matter; it was merely the question as to whether his
prejudice of years against renting that house to any one was to
rule or be overthrown. If she asked him for his decision what
should he say? At night, when he went to bed, his mind was made
up. In the morning when he arose it was unmade. As he told
Captain Hunniwell: "I'm like that old clock I used to have, Sam.
The pendulum of that thing used to work fine, but the hands
wouldn't move. Same way with me. I tick, tick, tick all day over
this pesky business, but I don't get anywheres. It's always half-
past nothin'."

Captain Sam was hugely disgusted. "It ain't more'n quarter past,
if it is that," he declared, emphatically. "It's just nothin', if
you ask me. And say, speakin' of askin', I'd like to ask you this:
How are you goin' to get 'em out, pro