"I don't know," she said. "And I'm sure I don't care. I don't like good-looking ministers."

"Deary me! You're different from most females in this town, then. And you spoke of his good looks yourself this very mornin'. Why don't you like the good-lookin' ones?"

"Oh, because they're always conceited and patronizing and superior--and spoiled. I can just imagine this Mr. Ellery of yours strutting about in sewing circle or sociables, with Annabel and Georgianna Lothrop and the rest simpering and gushing and getting in his way: 'O Mr. Ellery, I did so enjoy that sermon of yours Sunday!' and 'O Mr. Ellery, it was SO good of you to come this afternoon!' Pooh! I'm glad I'm a Come-Outer. Not that I would simper over him if I wasn't. He couldn't patronize me--not more than once, at any rate."

Keziah was greatly amused.

"Sakes alive!" she chuckled. "You're awfully high and mighty, seems to me. And changeable since mornin'. You was willin' enough to talk about him then. Now, Gracie, you mustn't take a spite against poor Mr. Ellery just because I've got to keep house for him. 'Tain't his fault; he don't even know it yet."

"I don't care. I know he'll be a conceited little snippet and I shall hate the sight of him. There! there! Auntie, you mustn't mind me. I told you I was a selfish pig. But don't you ask me to LIKE this precious minister of yours, because I shan't do it. He has no business to come and separate me from the best friend I've got. I'd tell him so if he was here--What was that?"

Both women looked at each other with startled faces. They listened intently.

"Why, wa'n't that funny!" whispered Keziah. "I thought I heard--"

"You DID hear. So did I. What do you suppose--"

"S-s-s-h-h! It sounded from the front room somewhere. And yet there can't be anybody in there, because--My soul! there 'tis again. I'm goin'

to find out."

She grasped the stubby broom by the handle and moved determinedly toward the front hall. Grace seized her by the arm.

"Don't you do it, auntie!" she whispered frantically. "Don't you DO it!

It may be a tramp."

"I don't care. Whoever or whatever it is, it has no business in this house, and I'll make that plain in a hurry. Just like as not it's a cat got in when Elkanah was here this forenoon. Don't be scared, Grace. Come right along."

The girl came along, but not with enthusiasm. They tiptoed through the dark, narrow hall and peered into the parlor. This apartment was dim and still and gloomy, as all proper parlors should be, but there was no sign of life.

"Humph!" sniffed Keziah. "It might have been upstairs, but it didn't sound so. What did it sound like to you?"

"Like a footstep at first; and then like something falling--and rustling. Oh, what is the matter?"

Mrs. Coffin was glancing back down the hall with a strange expression on her face. Her grip upon the broom handle tightened.

"What IS it?" pleaded the girl in an agonized whisper.

"Grace," was the low reply, "I've just remembered somethin'. That study door isn't stuck from the damp, because--well, because I remember now that it was open this mornin'."

Before her companion could fully grasp the import of this paralyzing fact, Keziah strode down the hall and seized the k.n.o.b of the study door.

"Whoever you are in there," she commanded sternly, "open this door and come out this minute. Do you hear? I'm orderin' you to come out."

There was an instant of silence; then a voice from within made answer, a man's voice, and its tone indicated embarra.s.sment.

"Madam," it said, "I--I am--I will be out in another minute. If you will just be patient--"

Grace interrupted with a smothered shriek. Keziah brandished the broom.

"Patient!" she repeated sharply. "Well, I like that! What do you mean by--Open that door! Grace, run out and get the--the constable."

This command was delivered entirely for effect. The office of constable in Trumet is, generally speaking, a purely honorary one. Its occupant had just departed for a week's cruise as mate of a mackerel schooner.

However, the effect was instantaneous. From behind the door came sounds of hurry and commotion.

"Don't get the police on my account, please," said the voice. "If you will be patient until I get this--I'm just as anxious to come out as you can be to have me. Of all the ridiculous--"

"Come out then!" snapped Keziah. "Come out! If you're so everlastin'

anxious, then come out. Patience! Of all the cheek! Why don't you come out NOW?"

The answer was brisk and to the point. Evidently, the unknown's stock of the virtue which he demanded of others was diminishing.

"Well, to be frank, since you insist," snapped the voice, "I'm not fully dressed."

This was a staggerer. For once Keziah did not have a reply ready.

She looked at Grace and the latter at her. Then, without words, they retreated to the sitting room.

"Shall--shall I go for help?" whispered the girl. "Hadn't we better leave him here and--He doesn't sound like a tramp, does he. What DO you suppose--"

"I hope you won't be alarmed," continued the voice, broken by panting pauses, as if the speaker was struggling into a garment. "I know this must seem strange. You see, I came on the coach as far as Bayport and then we lost a wheel in a rut. There was a--oh, dear! where IS that--this is supremely idiotic!--I was saying there happened to be a man coming this way with a buggy and he offered to help me along. He was on his way to Wellmouth. So I left my trunk to come later and took my valise. It rained on the way and I was wet through. I stopped at Captain Daniels's house and the girl said he had gone with his daughter to the next town, but that they were to stop here at the parsonage on their way. So--there! that's right, at last!--so I came, hoping to find them.

The door was open and I came in. The captain and his daughter were not here, but, as I was pretty wet, I thought I would seize the opportunity to change my clothes. I had some dry--er--things in my valise and I--well, then you came, you see, and--I a.s.sure you I--well, it was the most embarra.s.sing--I'm coming now."

The door opened. The two in the sitting room huddled close together, Keziah holding the broom like a battle-ax, ready for whatsoever might develop. From the dimness of the tightly shuttered study stepped the owner of the voice, a stranger, a young man, his hair rumpled, his tie disarranged, and the b.u.t.tons of his waistcoat filling the wrong b.u.t.tonholes. Despite this evidence of a hasty toilet in semidarkness, he was not unprepossessing. Incidentally, he was blushing furiously.

"I'm--I'm sure I beg your pardon, ladies," he stammered. "I scarcely know what to say to you. I--"

His eyes becoming accustomed to the light in the sitting room, he was now able to see his captors more clearly. He looked at Keziah, then at Miss Van Horne, and another wave of blushes pa.s.sed from his collar up into the roots of his hair. Grace blushed, too, though, as she perfectly well knew, there was no reason why she should.

Mrs. Coffin did not blush. This young fellow, although evidently not a tramp or a burglar, had caused her some moments of distinct uneasiness, and she resented the fact.

"Well," she observed rather tartly, "I'm sorry you don't know what to say, but perhaps you might begin by telling us who you are and what you mean by makin' a--er--dressin' room of a house that don't belong to you, just because you happened to find the door unlocked. After that you might explain why you didn't speak up when we first come, instead of keepin' so mighty quiet. That looks kind of suspicious to me, I must say."

The stranger's answer was prompt enough now. It was evident he resented the suspicion.

"I didn't speak," he said, "because you took me by surprise and I wasn't, as I explained--er--presentable. Besides, I was afraid of frightening you. I a.s.sure you I hurried as fast as I could, quietly, and when you began to talk"--his expression changed and there was a twitch at the corner of his mouth--"I tried to hurry still faster, hoping you might not hear me and I could make my appearance--or my escape--sooner.

As for entering the house--well, I considered it, in a way, my house; at least, I knew I should live in it for a time, and--"

"Live in it?" repeated Keziah. "LIVE in it? Why! mercy on us! you don't mean to say you're--"

She stopped to look at Grace. That young lady was looking at her with an expression which, as it expressed so very much, is beyond ordinary powers of description.

"My name is Ellery," said the stranger. "I am the minister--the new minister of the Regular society."

Then even Keziah blushed.

CHAPTER III

IN WHICH KEZIAH a.s.sUMES A GUARDIANSHIP