upon the Fair Harbor grounds. His landlord was at work in the garden. The captain had limped as far as the gate and was about to turn and limp back again when, behold, along the path beyond that gate appeared two feminine figures strolling with what might be called careful carelessness, looking up, down and on every side except that upon which stood Captain Sears Kendrick. And the captain recognized the pair, the one tall, slim, slender—unusually slim and remarkably slender—the other short and plump—very decidedly plump—as the ladies with whom he had held brief but spirited discourse the fortnight before, the ladies who had peered forth at him from the vine-draped window of the Eyrie—in short, for Miss Elvira Snowden and Mrs. Aurora Chase.
The pair came scrolling along the path. They were almost at the gate when Miss Snowden looked up—she would have said she happened to look up—and saw the captain standing there. She was embarrassed and surprised—any one might have noticed the surprise and embarrassment. She started, gasped and uttered a little exclamation. Mrs. Chase, taking her affliction into account, could not possibly have heard the exclamation, but no doubt there was a telepathic quality in it, for she, too, started, looked up and was surprised and embarrassed.
"Why—why, oh, dear!" faltered Miss Snowden.
"Why! My soul and body!" exclaimed Mrs. Chase.
Captain Sears raised his hat. "Good mornin'," he said politely.
The ladies looked at each other. Then Miss Elvira, evidently the born leader, inclined her head ever so little and said, "Good morning." Mrs. Aurora looked up at her in order to see what she said.
Captain Sears tried again.
"It's a nice day for a walk," he observed.
Miss Elvira nodded and agreed, distantly—yet not too distant.
"I understand," said the captain, "that I gave you ladies a little bit of a scare the other day. Understand you thought I was a tramp. I'm real sorry. Of course I know I hadn't any business over on your premises, but, as a matter of fact, I didn't exactly realize where I was. It was the first cruise I'd made in these latitudes, as you might say, and I didn't think about keepin' on my own side of the channel buoys. I beg your pardon. I'll hope you'll excuse me."
Miss Snowden nodded elegantly and murmured that she understood.
"You are our new neighbor, I believe," she said.
"Why, yes'm, I suppose I am."
"Cap'n Kendrick, isn't it?"
"Yes."
"I hope, Cap'n Kendrick, that you won't think there was any—ah—anything personal in our mistaking you for a tramp the other day. Of course there wasn't. Oh, dear, no!"
The captain hesitated. He was wondering just what answer he was supposed to make to this speech. Did the lady wish him to infer that it was the Fair Harbor custom to consider all male strangers tramps until they were proven innocent? Or—but Mrs. Chase saved him the trouble of reply.
"Elviry," she demanded, "what are you and him whisperin' about? Why don't you talk so's a body can hear you? He's Cap'n Kendrick, ain't he? Have you told him who we be, same as you said you was goin' to?"
Miss Snowden, after looking at the rotund Aurora as if she would like to bite her, smiled instead and began a rather tangled explanation to the effect that she and Mrs. Chase had felt that perhaps they had been a—ah—they might have seemed "kind of hasty—you know, Cap'n Kendrick, in what—in speaking as we did that time, and so—and so I told her if we ever did meet you—if we ever should, you know—— But we haven't really met yet, have we? Shall we introduce ourselves? I don't see why not; neighbors, you know. Cap'n Kendrick, this is Mrs. Aurora Chase, widow of the late Cap'n Ichabod Chase. No doubt, you knew Cap'n Chase in the old days, Cap'n Kendrick."
And then Aurora, who had been listening with all her ears, and hearing with perhaps a third of them, broke in to say that her husband was not a captain. "He was second mate when he died," she explained. "Aboard the bark Charles Francis he was, bound for New Bedford from the West Indies with a load of guano."
Miss Snowden, favoring the veracious Aurora with another look, hastily introduced herself and began to speak of the beauties of the day, of the surroundings, and particularly of the select and refined joys of life at the Fair Harbor.
"We have our little circle there," she said. "We live our lives, quiet, retired, away from the world——"
Mrs. Chase broke in once more to ask what she was talking about. When the substance of the Snowden rhapsody was given her, she nodded—as well as her several chins would permit her to nod—and announced that she agreed.
"We like livin' at the home first-rate," she declared. Elvira flushed.
"It is not a home," she said, sharply. "It is a select retreat, that is all. It is not a home in any sense of the word. Every one knows that it is not. Aurora, I wish to goodness you—— But of course Cap'n Kendrick doesn't want to hear about us all the time. He is interested in his own new quarters. Do you like it here, Cap'n Kendrick? I—ah—understand you are, so to speak, a guest of Mr. Cahoon's. He is—ah—a relation of yours?"
Sears explained the acquaintanceship between Judah and himself. Miss Snowden nodded comprehension.
"That explains it," she said. "I thought he could hardly be a relation of yours, Cap'n Kendrick. He is—he is a little bit queer, isn't he? I mean eccentric, you know. Of course I've never met him, and I'm sure he's real good-hearted, but——"
She paused, leaving the rest of the sentence to be inferred. Captain Sear's answer was prompt and crisp.
"Judah Cahoon is one of the best fellows that ever lived," he said.
"Yes, I know. I am sure he is. I didn't mean that. I meant is he—is he——"
And then Judah himself, at work in the garden behind the screen of bushes, too busy to hear or even be aware of the conversation at the gate, chose this untoward moment to burst into song, to sing at the top of his voice, and the top of Judah's voice was an elevation from which sound traveled far. He sang:
"Oh, Sally Brown was a bright mulatter,
Way, oh, roll and go!
She drinks rum and chews terbacker,
Spend my money on Sally Brown.
Whee—yip!"
Miss Elvira's thin figure stiffened to an exclamation point of disapproval. Captain Kendrick turned uneasily in the direction of the singer. Mrs. Chase, aware that something was going on and not wishing to miss it, cupped her ear with her hand. And Judah began the second verse.
"Oh, Sally Brown, I'll surely miss you,
Way, oh, roll and go!
How I'd love to hug and kiss you!
Spend my money on Sally Brown.
Whee—yip!"
"Judah!" roared the captain, who was suffering acute apprehension. "Judah!"
"Oh, Sally Brown——"
"Judah!"
"Eh?
