aching the store along the white road.

"I saw her get out of Noah's ark when he landed at the post-office this
noon," Lawford explained to Cap'n Joab. "She looks like a nice girl."

"Trim as a yacht," declared the old man admiringly.

She was plainly city bred--and city gowned--and she carried her light
traveling bag by a strap over her shoulder. Her trim shoes were dusty
from her walk and her face was pink under her wide hat brim.

Lawford stepped out upon the porch. His gaze was glued again to this
vision of young womanhood; but as he stood at one side she did not appear
to see him as she mounted the steps.

The heir of the Salt Water Taffy King was twenty-four, his rather
desultory college course behind him; and he thought his experience with
girls had been wide. But he had never seen one just like Louise
Grayling. He was secretly telling himself this as she made her entrance
into Cap'n Abe's store.

CHAPTER III

IN CAP'N ABE'S LIVING-ROOM

Louise came into the store smiling and the dusty, musty old place seemed
actually to brighten in the sunshine of her presence. Her big gray eyes
(they were almost blue when their owner was in an introspective mood) now
sparkled as her glance swept Cap'n Abe's stock-in-trade--the shelves of
fly-specked canned goods and cereal packages, with soap, and starch, and
half a hundred other kitchen goods beyond; the bolts of calico, gingham,
"turkey red," and mill-ends; the piles of visored caps and boxes of
sunbonnets on the counter: the ship-lanterns, coils of rope, boathooks,
tholepins hanging in wreaths; bailers, clam hoes, buckets, and the
thousand and one articles which made the store on the Shell Road a museum
that later was sure to engage the interest of the girl.

Now, however, the clutter of the shop gained but fleeting notice from
Louise. Her gaze almost immediately fastened upon the figure of the
bewhiskered old man, with spectacles and sou'wester both pushed back on
his bald crown, who mildly looked upon her--his smile somehow impressing
Louise Grayling as almost childish, it was so kindly.

Cap'n Joab had dodged through the door after Lawford Tapp. The other
boys from The Beaches followed their leader. Old Washy Gallup and Amiel
Perdue suddenly remembered that it was almost chore time as this radiant
young woman said:

"I wish to see Mr. Abram Silt--Captain Silt. Is he here?"

"I'm him, miss," Cap'n Abe returned politely.

Milt Baker surely wou