. "Looks to me as though
somethin'll have to happen to Abe Silt 'twixt Boston and this port.
And you'll have to stop your father's mouth, Louise. I depend upon you
to help me. Otherwise I shall be undone--completely undone."

"Goodness!" cried the girl, choked with laughter again. "Do you mean
to do away with Cap'n Abe? I fear you are quite as wicked as Betty
Gallup believes you to be--and Aunt Euphemia."

He grinned broadly once more. "I got Cap'n Abe's will filed away
already--if somethin' should happen," said the old intriguer.
"Everything's fixed, Niece Louise."

"I'll help you," she declared, and gave him her hand a second time.

CHAPTER XXVIII

STORM CLOUDS THREATEN

The next week Gusty Durgin made her debut as a picture actress. She
had pestered Mr. Bane morn, noon, and night at the hotel until finally
the leading man obtained Mr. Anscomb's permission to work the buxom
waitress into a picture.

"But nothin' funny, Mr. Bane," Gusty begged. "Land sakes! It's the
easiest thing in the world to get a laugh out of a fat woman fallin'
down a sand bank, or a fat man bein' busted in the face with a custard
pie. I don't want folks to laugh at my fat. I want 'em to forget that
I _am_ fat."

"Do you know, Miss Grayling," said Bane, recounting this to Louise,
"_that_ is art. Gusty has the right idea. Many a floweret is born to
blush unseen, the poet says. But can it be we have found in Gusty
Durgin a screen artist in embryo?"

Louise was interested enough to go to the beach early to watch Gusty in
a moving picture part.

"A real sad piece 'tis, too," the waitress confided to Louise. "I got
to make up like a mother--old, you know, and real wrinkled. And when
my daughter (she's Miss Noyes) is driv' away from home by her father
because she's done wrong, I got to take on like kildee 'bout it. It's
awful touchin'. I jest cried about it ha'f the night when this Mr.
Anscomb told me what I'd have to do in the picture.

"Land sakes! I can cry re'l tears with the best of 'em--you see if I
can't, Miss Grayling. You ought to be a movie actress yourself. It
don't seem just right that you ain't."

"But I fear I could not weep real tears," Louise said.

"No. Mebbe not. That's a gift, I guess," Gusty agreed. "There! I
got to go now. He's callin' me. The boss's sister will have to wait
on all the boarders for dinner to-day. An' my! ain't she sore! But if
I'm a success in these pictures you c