At nine o'clock that night he was still "explaining."

Keziah turned from the door she had closed behind her visitor.

"Well!" she e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed. "WELL!"

Her friend did not look at her. She was still gazing out of the window.

Occasionally she seemed to choke.

Keziah eyed her suspiciously.

"Humph!" she mused. "'Twas funny, wasn't it?"

"Oh, dreadfully!" was the hurried answer.

"Yes. Seems to me you took an awful long time findin' that hammer."

"It was away back in the drawer. I didn't see it at first."

"Hum! Grace Van Horne, if I thought you heard what that--that THING said to me, I'd--I'd--Good land of mercy! somebody ELSE is comin'."

Steps, measured, dignified steps, sounded on the walk. From without came a "Hum--ha!" a portentous combination of cough and grunt. Grace dodged back from the window and hastily began donning her hat and jacket.

"It's Cap'n Elkanah," she whispered. "I must go. This seems to be your busy morning, Aunt Keziah. I"--here she choked again--"really, I didn't know you were so popular."

Keziah opened the door. Captain Elkanah Daniels, prosperous, pompous, and unbending, crossed the threshold. Richest man in the village, retired shipowner, pillar of the Regular church and leading member of its parish committee, Captain Elkanah looked the part. He removed his hat, cleared his throat behind his black stock, and spoke with impressive deliberation.

"Good morning, Keziah. Ah--er--morning, Grace." Even in the tone given to a perfunctory salutation like this, the captain differentiated between Regular and Come-Outer. "Keziah, I--hum, ha!--rather expected to find you alone."

"I was just going, Cap'n Daniels," explained the girl. The captain bowed and continued.

"Keziah," he said, "Keziah, I came to see you on a somewhat important matter. I have a proposal I wish to make you."

He must have been surprised at the effect of his words. Keziah's face was a picture, a crimson picture of paralyzed amazement. As for Miss Van Horne, that young lady gave vent to what her friend described afterwards as a "squeal," and bolted out of the door and into the grateful seclusion of the fog.

CHAPTER II

IN WHICH KEZIAH UNEARTHS A PROWLER

The fog was cruel to the gossips of Trumet that day. Mrs. Didama Rogers, who lived all alone, except for the society of three cats, a canary, and a white poodle named "Bunch," in the little house next to Captain Elkanah's establishment, never entirely recovered from the chagrin and disappointment caused by that provoking mist. When one habitually hurries through the morning's household duties in order to sit by the front window and note each pa.s.ser-by, with various fascinating surmises as to his or her errand and the reasons for it, it is discouraging to be able to see only one's own front fence and a scant ten feet of sidewalk.

And then to learn afterwards of a dozen most exciting events, each distinctly out of the ordinary, which might have been used as excuses for two dozen calls and as many sensations! As Captain Zeb Mayo, the irreverent ex-whaler, put it, "That fog shook Didama's faith in the judgment of Providence. 'Tain't the 'all wise,' but the 'all seein''

kind she talks about in meetin' now."

The fog prevented Mrs. Rogers's noting the entrance of Mr. Pepper at the Coffin front gate. Also his exit, under sisterly arrest. It shut from her view the majestic approach of Captain Elkanah Daniels and Grace's flight, her face dimpled with smiles and breaking into laughter at frequent intervals. For a young lady, supposed to be a devout Come-Outer, to hurry along the main road, a handkerchief at her mouth and her eyes sparkling with fun, was a circ.u.mstance calculated to furnish material for enjoyable scandal. And Didama missed it.

Other happenings she missed, also. Not knowing of Captain Daniels's call upon Keziah, she was deprived of the pleasure of wonder at the length of his stay. She did not see him, in company with Mrs. Coffin, go down the road in the opposite direction from that taken by Grace. Nor their return and parting at the gate, two hours later. She did not see--but there! she saw nothing, absolutely nothing--except the scraggy spruce tree in her tiny front yard and the lonely ten feet of walk bordering it. No one traversed that section of walk except old Mrs. Tinker, who was collecting subscriptions for new hymn books for the Come-Outer chapel. And Didama was particularly anxious NOT to see her.

The dismal day dragged on. The silver-leaf trees dripped, the hedges were shining with moisture. Through the stillness the distant surf along the "ocean side" of the Cape growled and moaned and the fog bell at the lighthouse clanged miserably. Along the walk opposite Didama's--the more popular side of the road--shadowy figures pa.s.sed at long intervals, children going to and from school, people on errands to the store, and the like. It was three o'clock in the afternoon before a visitor came again to the Coffin front gate, entered the yard and rapped at the side door.

Keziah opened the door.

"Halloa!" she exclaimed. "Back, are you? I begun to think you'd been scared away for good."

Grace laughed as she entered.

"Well, auntie," she said, "I don't wonder you thought I was scared.

Truly, I didn't think it was proper for me to stay. First Kyan and then Cap'n Elkanah, and both of them expressing their wishes to see you alone so--er--pointedly. I thought it was time for me to go. Surely, you give me credit for a little delicacy."

Keziah eyed her grimly.

"Humph!" she sniffed. "If you'd been a little less delicate about fetchin' that hammer, we might have been spared at least one smash-up. I don't s'pose Laviny'll ever speak to me again. Oh, dear! I guess likely I'll never get the memory of that--that Kyan thing out of my mind. I never was so set back in my born days. Yes, you can laugh!"

She laughed herself as she said it. As for Grace, it was sometime before that young lady became coherent.

"He DID look so funny!" she gasped. "Hopping up and down on that shaky chair and holding on to that pipe and--and--O Aunt Keziah, if you could have seen your face when I opened that door!"

"Yes; well, I will say you was sometime gettin' it open. And then, on top of the whole fool business, in parades Elkanah Daniels and--"

She paused. Her companion looked delightedly expectant.

"Yes," she cried eagerly. "Then Cap'n Elkanah came and the very first thing he said was--I almost laughed in his face."

"Almost! Humph! that's no exaggeration. The way you put out of that door was a caution."

"Yes, but what did the cap'n mean? Is it a secret? Ahem! shall I congratulate you, auntie?"

"Grace Van Horne! there's born fools enough in this town without your tryin' to be one. You know 'twa'n't THAT. Though what 'twas was surprise enough, I will say," she added. "Grace, I ain't goin' away to-morrow."

"You're not? Oh, splendid! Has the cap'n decided to let you stay here?"

"I guess his decidin' wouldn't influence me, if twas stayin' in his house he meant. The only way I could live here would be on his charity, and that would be as poor fodder as sawdust hasty puddin', even if I was fond of charity, which I ain't. He said to me--Well, you take your things off and I'll tell you about it. You can stay a little while, can't you?"

"Yes, I was going to stay all the afternoon and for supper, if you'd let me. I knew you had so much to do and I wanted to help. I told uncle and he said certainly I ought to come. He said he should try to see you and say good-by before you left tomorrow."

"You don't say! And me a Regular! Well, I'm much obliged, though I guess your Uncle Eben won't see me to-morrow--nor speak to me again, when he knows what I AM going to do. Grace, I ain't goin' to leave Trumet, not for the present, anyhow. I've got a way of earnin' my livin' right here.

I'm goin' to keep house for the new minister."

The girl turned, her hat in her hand.

"Oh!" she cried in utter astonishment.

Keziah nodded. "Yes," she affirmed. "That was what Elkanah's proposal amounted to. Ha! ha! Deary me! When he said 'proposal,' I own up for a minute I didn't know WHAT was comin'. After Kyan I was prepared for 'most anything. But he told me that Lurany Phelps, who the parish committee had counted on to keep house for Mr. Ellery, had sent word her sister was sick and couldn't be left, and that somebody must be hired right off 'cause the minister's expected by day after to-morrow's coach.

And they'd gone over every likely candidate in town till it simmered down to Mehitable Burgess. And Cap'n Zeb Mayo spoke right up in the committee meetin' and gave out that if Mehitable kept house for Mr.

Ellery he, for one, wouldn't come to church. Said he didn't want to hear sermons that was inspired by HER cookin'. Seems she cooked for the Mayos one week when Mrs. Mayo had gone to Boston, and Cap'n Zeb declares his dreams that week was somethin' awful. 'And I'm a man with no nerves and mighty little imagination,' he says. 'Land knows what effect a dose of Mehitable's biscuits might have on a MINISTER.'

"And so," continued Keziah, "they decided Mehitable wouldn't do, and finally somebody thought of me. I have a notion 'twas Zeb, although Cap'n Elkanah did his best to make me think 'twas himself. And the cap'n was made a delegate to come and see me about it. Come he did, and we settled it. I went down to the parsonage with him before dinner and looked the place over. There's an awful lot of sweepin' and dustin' to be done afore it's fit for a body to live in. I did think that when I'd finished with this house I could swear off on that kind of dissipation for a while, but I guess, judgin' by the looks of that parsonage, what I've done so far is only practice." She paused, glanced keenly at her friend and asked: "Why! what's the matter? You don't act nigh so glad as I thought you'd be."

Grace said of course she was glad; but she looked troubled, nevertheless.