"So I did, and so she was. But she don't count nowadays."

"Why doesn't she?"

"Well, if you ask me I shall give you an answer. Elviry Snowden ain't
fell heir to five thousand dollars and Cordelia Berry has. That's why."

Sears uneasily shifted again. This conversation was following much too
closely his own line of reasoning.

"Five thousand isn't any great fortune," he observed, "to a man like
Phillips."

The little woman nodded. "It's five thousand dollars to a man just
_like_ Phillips--now," she said, significantly. "And, more'n that,
Cordelia's matron at the Harbor. The Fair Harbor ain't a Eyetalian
palace maybe, but it's a nice, comf'table place where the matron's
husband might live easy and not pay board.... That's _my_ guess. Other
folks can have theirs and welcome."

"But----"

"There ain't no buts about it, Cap'n Kendrick. You know it's so. Eg
Phillips is goin' to marry Cordelia Berry. My name ain't Elijah nor
Jeremiah--no, nor Deuteronomy nuther--but I can prophesy that much."

She rose with a triumphant bounce, turned to the open door behind her,
and saw Elizabeth Berry standing there. Sears Kendrick saw her at the
same time.

There are periods in the life of each individual when it seems as if
Fate was holding a hammer above that individual's head and, at
intervals, as the head ventures to lift itself, knocking it down again.
Each successive tap seems a bit harder, and the victim, during the
interval of its falling, wonders if it is to be the final and finishing
thump.

Sears did not wonder this time, he knew. His thought, as he saw her
there, saw the expression upon her face and realized what she must have
heard, was: "Here it is! This is the end."

Yet he was the first of the two to speak. Elizabeth, white and rigid,
said nothing, and even Mrs. Tidditt's talking machinery seemed to be
temporarily thrown out of gear. So the captain made the attempt, a
feeble one.

"Why, Elizabeth," he faltered, "is that you?... Come in, won't you?"

She did come in, that is, she came as far as the door mat. Then she
turned, not to him, but to his companion.

"What do you mean by speaking in that way of my mother?" she demanded.

Esther was still a trifle off balance. Her answer was rather incoherent.

"I--I don't know's I--as I said--as I said much of anything--much," she
stammered.

"I heard you. How dare you tell such--such _lies_?"

"Lies?"

"Yes; mean, miserable lies. What else are they? How dar