just read--the letter from Judge Knowles which
Bradley had handed him before he left Orham--was of itself too startling
and disturbing to be dismissed from his thoughts; but he heard some,
enough to make him realize that there might be, in all probability was,
trouble ahead. Just why Phillips had returned to Bayport, to take up his
abode there permanently, was hard to understand, but there certainly
must be some reason beside his "love" for the place and its people.
Neither place nor people should, so it seemed to the captain, appeal
strongly to a citizen of the world, of the fashionable world, like Mr.
Egbert Phillips. It is true that he might perhaps live cheaper there
than in most communities, but still.... No, Sears was sure that the
former singing teacher had returned to the Cape in pursuance of a plan.
What that plan might be he could not guess, unless the widower
contemplated contesting his wife's gift to the Fair Harbor. That would
be a losing fight, was certain to be, for Judge Knowles had seen to
that. But if not that--what?

He gave very little thought to the matter at the time, for Judge
Knowles' letter and its astounding proposition were monopolizing his
mental machinery. That letter would have, as he might have expressed it,
knocked him on his beam ends even if the Foam Flake's unexpected
outbreak had not knocked him there already. The letter was rather long,
but it was to the point, nevertheless. Judge Knowles begged him--him,
Sears Kendrick--to accept the appointment of trustee in charge of
Elizabeth Berry's twenty thousand dollar inheritance. The latter was
hers in trust until she was thirty.

"I have seen enough of you to believe in you, Kendrick," so the judge
had written. "Besides, you know the Berrys, mother and daughter, by this
time, better than any one else--even Bradley--and you know my opinion of
Cordelia's headpiece. I don't want her soft-headedness or foolishness to
get any of Elizabeth's money away from her. Elizabeth is a dutiful
daughter and an unselfish girl and she may feel--or be led to
feel--that her mother ought to have this money or a large part of it. I
don't want this to happen. Of course I expect Elizabeth to share her
income with her mother, but I don't want the principal disturbed. After
she is thirty she can, of course, do what she likes with it, but that
time isn't now by some years. And then there is that Egbert. Look out
for him. I say again, look out for him. If _he_ ever