“Now, ain’t you a pair to look at, and you to give your sermon this morning, Mr. McGowan! You look a heap sight worse than Edna Splinter, and she’s been raving with a fever all night.”

Miss Pipkin made this observation while the three of them sat at breakfast Sunday morning.

The minister absent-mindedly asked concerning the condition of Miss Splinter.

“She ’peared to be a trifle easier this morning. But what’s ailing the both of you? Look as if you’d been setting up all night like two owls.”

“Cal’late we’re on our uppers, Clemmie. But we’ll be fit as fiddles when we get some of them cakes stowed amidships, and ballast ’em down with a few swallers of that coffee. There ain’t everybody that can b’ile coffee like you, Clemmie.”

“Don’t be foolish, Josiah.”

After a very light breakfast, Mr. McGowan excused himself from the table, saying he must do some work on his sermon before the church hour. As the door to the study closed the Captain pushed back his plate and chair. He slid the latter round the end of the table, and placed it by Miss Pipkin.

“For the lan’ sakes, Josiah! You ain’t going to make love to me this morning, be you?”

“I ain’t sartin, Clemmie. It depends on your partic’lar frame of mind,” he replied slowly, a quiet kindness in his old eyes.

“I don’t know as I feel like being made love-sick,” she said, but without the old spirit of stubbornness.

“All right, Clemmie,” he said resignedly. “I cal’late you know best. I’m going to spin you a yarn about what took place round these premises last night. That is, if you’re willing to listen.”

“Why, of course I’m willing to listen. Did that lawyer show up here again with his old mortgage?”

“No, you bet he didn’t. And what’s more, he won’t come prowling round again, either.”

The Captain told his housekeeper the whole story. He passed as lightly as he could over the part where Adoniah had married the trader’s daughter. Miss Pipkin gave no sign that she cared in the least, or that the news had shocked her. But when the Captain rehearsed the treachery of Mr. James Fox, she grew rigid. She dabbed her apron into the corners of her eyes as he unfolded the story of the suffering of the little family. The old man paused to wipe the tears from his own eyes as he recounted the finding of the lad in the doorway with a pile of morning papers in his lap. For some time after he had finished neither spoke. The Captain dangled his bandanna at the end of his nose, and Miss Pipkin dabbed her checked apron against her wet cheeks.

“Josiah,” she whispered eagerly, “have you found the boy yet? Is he still alive?”

“Yes.” A prolonged blow followed.

She laid her hand in his. “Where is he? Do you think I could see him?”

“He’s in there.” He pointed toward the study door.

“In that study with Mr. McGowan? Is that what you said?”

He nodded.

“You brought him here from the city yesterday?”

The seaman shook his head. “He come long afore that.”

“Where’ve you been keeping him? Ain’t you going to fetch him out?” she cried, rising. “I’ll go get him.”

“Wait, Clemmie. It’s been nigh onto twenty-five year since he was born, so he ain’t a baby. Let Mack fetch him. Mack!” called the Captain sharply. A slight twinkle in his eyes offset the assumed severity of his command.

The door opened and Mr. McGowan stood on the threshold. Miss Pipkin stared from the one to the other.

“Be the both of you clean crazy?” she demanded, as the men grinned rather foolishly at each other.

“No, Clemmie. We’ve just woke up to our senses, that’s all.”

“If you think this a good joke,–––”

“It ain’t no joke,” said the Captain, motioning Mr. McGowan to come nearer. “I give you my word, it ain’t, Clemmie. There’s Adoniah Phillips’ son.”

With a smothered exclamation Miss Pipkin dropped back against the table. “You––you–––” But she ended with a gasp for breath and words.

“The Cap’n is telling you the truth,” confirmed the minister.

“You––and you let me tell you all that nonsense about him and me!”

“You’re doing me an injustice, Miss Pipkin. I did not know one thing about all this till last night.”

Captain Pott had risen. In his eagerness he stretched out his arms to the confused housekeeper. She turned from staring at the minister, and like a bewildered animal fled blindly in the direction of the kitchen. She found herself, instead, in the seaman’s arms. Here she stuck, and with hysterical sobs clung to the old man. Mr. McGowan came nearer. At sight of him she fled to his arms. For the next few minutes the practical, every-day 378 Miss Pipkin did things of which no one had ever imagined her capable. The Captain’s voice roused her.

“Here, young feller, you go loving where you’re wanted. I’ve been waiting for this too many years to be cheated out by a young rascal like you.” He seized the not unwilling Miss Pipkin, and pushed the minister in the direction of the kitchen.

“Clemmie, ain’t this grand?” asked the old man.

“It’s really been you all these years, Josiah.”

“Been me? You mean you’ve loved me all the time, Clemmie?”

“Um-hm,” she nodded vigorously. “But I was that stubborn that I wouldn’t give in. I always looked forward to your proposing. You ain’t proposed to me for a long time, Josiah.”

“But, Clemmie, are you sartin sure it’ll be all right now? If you get your rest, are you sartin you won’t feel different? Don’t you think you’d otter wait?”

“Josiah, ask me right now, so I can’t back 379 out, or get on another stubborn streak. I thought it all out ’longside Edna’s bed last night. She was raving, and calling for some one, poor thing, who she’d refused to marry when she was young. I said then and there that I wasn’t going to my grave with that kind of thing hanging over me. That is, if you ever asked me again.”

“You say you made up your mind last night, Clemmie? You sure it wa’n’t what I told you about Adoniah being married?”

“That had nothing to do with my decision.”

“Then, you mean we’re going to get married?”

“You ain’t asked me yet.”

“Miss Clemmie Pipkin,” he began, bending his knees in the direction of the floor, and upsetting the table as he went down with a thud, “will you ship aboard this here old craft as fust mate with a rough old skipper like me?”

“Lan’ sakes! Get up off that floor. You look awful silly. Get up this minute, or I’ll say no.”

The Captain got up with more alacrity than he had gone down.

“Will you marry me, honest, Clemmie?”

“Yes. You see, I kind of wanted to hear myself say it, because I’d made up my mind that way.”

An exclamation from the kitchen interrupted what the seaman was doing. The minister had retired thither to clear the mist from his eyes which had gathered there at signs of spring-time in the fall of these dear old lives. He now stood in the door, holding a dripping coffee-pot.

“Oh, my coffee!” cried the housekeeper. “It’s boiled all over the place.”

“Drat the coffee. Let her b’ile!”

Boil it certainly had, over the stove, on to the floor, and had collected in a puddle at the threshold.

“That’s what comes of not attending to your cooking,” observed the practical Miss Pipkin. The other Miss Pipkin, who had been sleeping for years in the living sepulcher of her heart, was saying and doing many things quite different.

From the cross-roads came the sound of the church-bell, calling the people of Little River Parish to worship.

“There’s the bell!” exclaimed Miss Pipkin. “It’s only a half-hour before service. If you’ll excuse me, Mack, I don’t think I’ll go this morning. You don’t mind if I call you Mack here at home, do you?”

“I want you to call me that, Aunt Clemmie.” He gave her a hurried kiss, and started toward his room. At the corner of the upset table he paused. “If I didn’t have to preach this morning I’d stay home, too.”

“You mean you’d go walking down ’long the beach,” corrected the Captain.

Miss Pipkin looked oddly at her lover. “Be they engaged?”

“They was, but I guess they ain’t.”

“What do you mean?”

“Jim came nigh sp’iling things last night. Mack said they’d call it all off till he found out more about his people. He was ’feared from what Jim had said to him that he had no right to love Beth. I cal’late he see that it 382 was right enough to go ahead afore I got through with him this morning.”

“Josiah, he’ll marry us, won’t he?”

“You just bet he will!”

“Ain’t it funny he never said nothing about being glad we was engaged?”

“We ain’t told him.”

“But he saw.”

“Script’re says something about having eyes and seeing not, and having ears and hearing not. Mack’s as nigh to obeying the sayings of Script’re as any one I know.”

“That’s so, Josiah. He is so good without trying to be,” declared Miss Pipkin. She lifted a hand to each of the old man’s shoulders, and he put his arms about her. “Do you believe in the care of Providence, Josiah, and in the guiding hand of God?”

The Captain tightened his embrace, and one of the bony hands of the housekeeper slipped into the knotty fingers about her waist.

“I’m larning to, Clemmie, but I’m going to need a heap of help. I ain’t used to these 383 religious channels, and I cal’late you’ll have to take the helm right often.”

They had not heard the sound of footsteps in the outer room. It was Mrs. Beaver’s voice that caused them to start.

“I thought I’d come over to borrow some–––”

Mrs. Beaver stopped short on the threshold, looked at the Captain and the housekeeper, and began to retreat. The practical Miss Pipkin was the first to recover speech.

“Come on right in, Mrs. Beaver. That’s a silly thing for me to say, seeing you’re already in. But what is it you’d like to borrow?”

Mrs. Beaver continued to retreat and stare. She saw the puddle of coffee on the floor. She eyed with interest the upset table. She saw that the Captain was undetermined what he ought to do with his hands. She watched him as he stumbled backward into the cupboard. Her face was a study.

“What was it you was going to ask for, Eadie?” asked the seaman, trying to appear unconcerned in his decided embarrassment.

“Well, I never!” exclaimed Mrs. Beaver.

“We’re engaged,” announced Miss Pipkin in matter-of-fact tones.

“Engaged! You and–––”

“Yes, she and me,” finished the Captain eagerly.

Mrs. Beaver’s hands dropped helplessly to her sides.

“Is there anything more you’d like to know?” asked Miss Pipkin kindly, as she crossed the room and put an arm about the spare figure of her neighbor. “We’re that happy that I wanted you to know, and I’m real glad you come over when you did.”

“Anything else I want to know?” she asked. “I should say there is. What has happened to Harry? He come home last night all different, talking for the minister till I couldn’t get a word in edgewise. It was awful late, too. And he told me that Sim Hicks had left town, or was going this morning.”

“I cal’late some one’s clothed Harry in his right mind. You know, Eadie, that’s Script’re. Sim has took a trip for his health.”

“And Harry tells me that Mr. Fox is for 385 the minister, too. Something must have happened.”

“Yes, something has happened. Eadie, you rec’lect that time when you fust spoke to me about the minister staying in my house you said I’d be in the way of the Lord if I’d do it. I wa’n’t very pleasant to you for going ahead and doing it while I was away, but you sartin did what Providence wanted that time.”

Mrs. Beaver did not attempt to reply.

“What was it you wanted to borrow?”

She looked from the one to the other, and made this comment: “I’m mighty glad for the both of you. You’re good, and you both deserve what you’ve got.” She kissed Miss Pipkin on the cheek, and turned toward the door.

“Eadie, what was it you come for?” asked the housekeeper in a strange voice.

“I come over for a pinch of salt, but–––”

“Give her the hull sack, dear,” ordered the Captain.

“I guess––I think–––I really don’t need the salt,” stammered Mrs. Beaver.

“Here, Eadie, don’t go off mad. I didn’t mean anything by what I said. I’d give half what I own this morning to a hobo if he’d ask for a crust of bread.”

“Thanks, Josiah. But I guess I got what I really come for. God bless you both!”

With that she was gone.

“Now, ain’t that the strangest you ever see?” observed the Captain.

He was cut short by the sound of a familiar toot out in the harbor. He stared at the housekeeper in dumb amazement.

“Clemmie, did you hear that? What in tarnation was it?”

“It sounded like your power-boat.”

“But it ain’t round here.”

Together they went outside. Together they stood on the stoop and watched a boat nose its way to the old mooring of the Jennie P.

“It’s her!” whispered the seaman hoarsely. “It’s my Jennie P.!”

He did not move from his place beside Miss Pipkin, but held tightly to her hand as John Peters came up from the wharf.

“Here’s a paper for you, Josiah. A girl come into my place about noon yesterday and made me sign it.”

Captain Pott was too surprised to even reach out for the piece of paper offered him.

Miss Pipkin took it, and unfolded it carefully.

“Read it for me, Clemmie.”

“It only says that the Jennie P. was bought back by Josiah Pott.”

“But I never–––”

“That girl said she’d come to represent you, and paid cash.”

Without a word the three went down to the wharf, and John Peters rowed the dory, with two passengers aboard, out to the Jennie P.

It was late in the afternoon when Mr. McGowan left the house. Fall permeated the air with an invigorating twang. Here and there the landscape showed the touch of frost. The marsh grass was turning brown. Among the trees and shrubbery color ran riot. The Fox knoll was a blend of beauty. As the minister passed the estate he sought for a 388 glimpse of the Elder’s daughter among the trees, or in the garden. But she was not to be seen.

For a long way he kept his course up the beach. He was thinking. How could he explain to Elizabeth the meaning of his actions last night? Would she listen after he had refused to give heed to her explanation?

Suddenly, he became aware that he stood on the spot where he had turned his ankle the night she had come to him from the water’s edge, and his thoughts were choked in the furrows of his brain. He seemed to hear her voice again as she had spoken that night of the impossibility of his love. He looked about. Far up the peninsula he recognized her. She was coming to him as straight as the line of the beach permitted. He started in her direction. She waved him back. He waited. On she came. Neither attempted to speak till she had reached his side.

“I’ve been waiting for you,” she said. “I thought you would never come.”

“You still want to see me after the way I treated you last night?”

“Please, don’t speak of that. I knew Uncle Josiah would tell you everything.”

“He did tell me all. I want you to forgive me for not taking your word that there was nothing in my past which would prevent our love, or mar it. I didn’t realize that you knew what you were saying. I feared that I had no right to love you after your father had spoken as he did of my parentage.”

With intense anticipation he held out his hands, but she drew away.

“Not now. I did not understand what Father’s obligation to you would involve.”

“Elizabeth, dear, do you mean you won’t forgive me?”

“I have nothing to forgive in you, Mack.” In her eyes was a return of the warmth of love she felt, but her attitude was one of firm resolve. “I have come to you to-day because I want to tell you that just for the present we must be only good friends. I’ve been thinking all night long about you, and now that you know who you are, and what my father has done against your father–––”

“But that is all past!”

“Not for me. Father ruined your father, and has grown rich on your money. Not till every cent of that is paid back can I think of marrying you.” There was the weight of dead finality in every word.

“But, Elizabeth–––”

“Please, Mack, don’t make it harder for me than you must. This is not easy, but you will see where it is best, when you have taken time to think it over.”

“You have not talked this over with your father, or with Harold?”

“No. Father was ill last night, and Harold was so tired that he has been sleeping all day. It would make no difference what either of them might say. I am doing this because it is right.”

“You do not know of the arrangements that are to be made?”

“All I know is that Father owes you the money, and that it is yours and must be paid back to you.”

“Elizabeth, there are papers to be drawn up, and–––”

“Mack, please don’t! I’m tired, and can’t 391 stand much. Don’t try to change my decision.”

“But those papers which Harold is to draw up must alter that decision. That is the only ground on which I shall accept the terms. Your father is to be given all the time he needs to pay me back. At first I flatly refused. I didn’t want to take any of his money. But Uncle Josiah made me see that it was the only thing to do.”

“Of course, it is the only thing to do. You are going to let Harold draft those papers because Father must give up what does not belong to him.”

“I’ll not permit one stroke of the pen unless–––”

“But, Mack, you must! This is your duty to make Father–––”

“Elizabeth, dear, it is not your father’s money I want. All that means nothing to me. I am consenting to the arrangement simply because I believe it will be best for him to pay it back. It’s you I want!”

She turned from him to look out over Long Island Sound. The sun was completing its 392 daily journey by tossing up glorious hues of gold, splashing the western sky without stint from its unseen pot of blending colors. Her face seemed to catch and hold the glory of the sky.

“Beth, we must not sacrifice the love which God has given us. That is something which all the money in the world cannot buy.”

She turned about to face him. Her eyes were filled with the reflection of the fire that glowed on the inner shrine of her heart.

“You are right, Mack. Our love is God’s gift.”

THE END