Zoeth put in a word.

"He says he'll pay pretty soon," he observed plaintively. "He's been sayin' it for over a year, though."

"Humph!" grunted Shadrach. "There's only a difference of one letter between 'sayin'' and 'payin',' but there ain't but two between 'trust'

and 'bust.'"

Mary spoke. "Never mind," she said. "I shall see Mr. Clifford myself. And I shall see some of these others, too. Now about our own bills--those we owe. I have a list of the princ.i.p.al creditors. Mr.

Green's firm is one of them; we owe them most of all, it seems. I think I shall go and see Mr. Green myself."

"For the land sakes, what for?" demanded Shadrach. "He knows how we're fixed, Zoeth wrote him."

"Yes, but I want to talk with him, nevertheless."

"But what for? You ain't goin' beggin' him to--"

"I'm not going begging at all. When I talked with him at the Howes' he, not knowing in the least who I was or that I was your niece, expressed sympathy for Hamilton and Company and wished there were some way of helping us out of our trouble--something he could do, you know. I'm not sure there isn't something he can do. At any rate, I am going to see him. I shall start for Boston Monday morning."

Zoeth ventured an observation.

"He'll be considerable surprised to see you, won't he?" he said.

Mary laughed. "I think he will," she replied. "Surprised and a little embarra.s.sed. But I imagine his embarra.s.sment will make him all the more anxious to be of service to me, and that's what I want from him--service."

Of course the partners asked hundreds more questions concerning the plans. Mary's answers were still disappointingly vague. Before she could tell just what she meant to do, she said she must be sure, and she was not sure yet. A great deal would depend upon her Boston trip. They must be patient until she returned from that.

So they were patient--that is to say, Zoeth was really so and Captain Shadrach was as patient as it was his nature to be. Mary was absent nearly a week. When she returned she had much to tell. She had visited Mr. Green at his office on Commercial Street. His surprise and embarra.s.sment were all that she had prophesied. He offered profuse apologies for his blunder at the Howes'.

"Of course, if I had known of your relationship to Captain Gould and Mr. Hamilton," he began, "I should never--Really, I am--I a.s.sure you I hadn't the slightest idea--"

He was floundering like a stranded fish. Mary helped him off the shoals by taking the remainder of his apologies for granted.

"Of course you hadn't," she said. "But I am very glad you told me, Mr.

Green. It was high time I knew. Don't say another word about it, please.

I have come to you to ask advice and, perhaps, help of a sort. May I have a little of your time?"

Mr. Green seized the opportunity thus offered. Indeed, she might have time, all the time she wanted. Anything in his power to do--and so on.

Being a bachelor and something of an elderly beau who prided himself upon making a good impression with the s.e.x, it had annoyed him greatly, the memory of his mistake. Also he had been distinctly taken with Mary and was anxious to reinstate himself in her opinion. So his willingness to atone was even eager.

"As it happens," he said, "I am not at all busy this afternoon. I can give you the rest of the day, if you wish. Now what can I do for you?"

Mary explained that she had come to speak with him concerning her uncles' business affairs, his house being Hamilton and Company's largest creditor. She told of her investigations, of the condition in which she had found the accounts, and of her determination to remain at South Harniss and work for the upbuilding of the concern.

"Of course I am not a business person like yourself, Mr. Green," she said. "I am only a girl. But I worked in my uncles' store and, in a way, managed it for two years or more before I came to Boston to school.

Beside that I have talked during these last few days with some of South Harniss's most prominent people--permanent residents, not summer people.

From what they and others tell me I am convinced that the sole reason why my uncles' business has fallen behind is because of a lack of keeping up to the times in the face of compet.i.tion. Everyone likes Uncle Zoeth and Uncle Shadrach and wishes them well--they couldn't help that, you know."

She made this a.s.sertion with such evident pride and with such absolute confidence that Mr. Green, although inclined to smile, felt it might be poor judgment to do so. So he agreed that there was no doubt of Shadrach's and Zoeth's universal popularity.

"Yes," went on Mary, "they are dears, both of them, and they think everyone else is as honest as they are, which is a mistake, of course.

So some people impose on them and don't pay their bills. I intend to stop that."

She evidently expected her listener to make some comment, so he said, "Oh, indeed!"

"Yes," continued Mary. "I intend to stop their trusting everyone under the sun and I shall try my hardest to collect from those they have already trusted. There is almost enough due to pay every bill we owe, and I believe two-thirds of that is collectible if one really goes after it."

"And you will go after it, I presume?"

"I most certainly shall. You are smiling, Mr. Green. I suppose it sounds like a joke, a girl like myself making such statements about things men are supposed to understand and women not to understand at all. It isn't a joke in this case, because I think I understand my uncles business better than they do. I think I can collect what is owed us, pay what we owe, and make money there in South Harniss. But to do that I must have time and, by and by, credit, for we need goods. And that is what I came to talk to you about."

She had brought with her copies of the Hamilton and Company trial balance, also a list of the firm's debtors and creditors. These she put upon the desk before Mr. Green and ran a finger down the pages with explanatory remarks such as, "This is good, I know," "This can be collected but it may take a lawyer to get it," or, as in the case of 'Rastus Young's long-standing indebtedness, "This isn't worth anything and shouldn't be counted."

"You see," she said, in conclusion, "we aren't in such a VERY bad state; it isn't hopeless, anyway. Now here are the accounts we owe. Yours is the largest. Here are the others. All these bills are going to be paid, just as I said, but they can't be paid at all unless I have time. I have been thinking, thinking very hard, Mr. Green--"

Green nodded. "I can see that," he put in, good-naturedly.

"Yes. Well, this is what I want to ask you: Will you give us six months more to pay the whole of this bill in? I don't think we shall need so much time, but I want to be sure. And if at the end of two months we have paid half of it, will you give us credit for another small bill of goods for the summer season, so that we may be stocked and ready? The summer is our best season, you see," she added.

Mr. Green nodded. Her businesslike manner he found amusing, although he by no means shared her confidence in the future.

"We shall be very glad to extend the time," he said. "You may remember I told you the other evening that so far as our house was concerned, we should probably be willing to sell your uncles indefinitely, for old times' sake."

His visitor frowned.

"We are not asking it for old times' sake," she said. "It is the new times I am interested in. And please understand this isn't sentiment but business. If you do not believe what I ask to be a safe business risk, that one your firm would be justified in accepting from anybody, then you mustn't do it."

Mr. Green hesitated. "Suppose I do not accept that risk," he said; "what then?"

"Then I shall go and see some other creditors, the princ.i.p.al ones, and make them similar propositions."

"And suppose they don't accept?"

"I think they will, most of them. If they don't--well, then there is another way. My uncles own their house and store. They have been thinking of selling their property to pay their debts. I should hate to have them sell, and I don't believe it is necessary. I have been talking with Judge Baxter over at Ostable--I stopped there on my way to Boston--and he suggested that they might mortgage and raise money that way. It could be done, couldn't it? Mortgages are a kind of business I don't know anything about. They sound horrid."

"Sometimes they are. Miss Lathrop, if I were you I shouldn't sell or mortgage yet. I am inclined to believe, judging by this balance sheet and what you say, that you have a chance to pull Hamilton and Company out of the fire, and I'm very sure you can do it if anyone can. Are you going to be in the city for a day or two? Good! Then will you let me consider this whole matter until--say--Thursday? By that time I shall have made up my mind and may have something to say which will be worth while. Can you come in Thursday afternoon at two? And will you? Very well. Oh, don't thank me! I haven't done anything yet. Perhaps I shall not be able to, but we shall hope for the best."

Mary went straight to Mrs. Wyeth's home on Pinckney Street and once more occupied her pleasant room on the third floor. In spite of her determination not to care she could not help feeling a little pang as she walked by the Misses Cabot's school and remembered that she would never again enjoy the privileges and advantages of that exclusive inst.i.tution. She wondered how the girls, her cla.s.smates, had felt and spoken when they heard the news that she had left them and returned to Cape Cod and storekeeping. Some would sneer and laugh--she knew that--and some might be a little sorry. But they would all forget her, of course. Doubtless, most of them had forgotten her already.

But the fact that all had not forgotten was proved that very evening when, as she and Mrs. Wyeth and Miss Pease were sitting talking together in the parlor, Maggie, the maid, answering the ring of the doorbell, ushered in Miss Barbara Howe. Barbara was, as usual, arrayed like the lilies of the field, but her fine petals were decidedly crumpled by the hug which she gave Mary as soon as she laid eyes upon her.

"You bad girl!" she cried. "Why didn't you tell me you were in town? And why didn't you answer my letter--the one I wrote you at South Harniss? I didn't hear a word and only tonight, after dinner, I had the inspiration of phoning Mrs. Wyeth and trying to learn from her where you were and what you meant by dropping all your friends. Maggie answered the phone and said you were here and I threw on my things--yes, 'threw' is the word; nothing else describes the process--and came straight over. How DO you do? And WHAT are you doing?"

Mary said she was well and that she had been too busy to reply to Miss Howe's letter. But this did not satisfy. Barbara wanted to know why she had been busy and how, so Mary told of her determination to remain in South Harniss and become a business woman, Barbara was greatly excited and enthusiastic.

"Won't it be perfectly splendid!" she exclaimed. "I only wish I were going to do it instead of having to stay at that straight-up-and-down school and listen to Prissy's dissertations on Emerson. She told the Freshman cla.s.s the other day that she had had the honor of meeting Mr.

Emerson when very young--when SHE was young, she meant; she always tells every Freshman cla.s.s that, you know--and one of the Freshies spoke up and asked if she ever met him afterwards when he was older. They said her face was a picture; I wish I might have seen it. But do tell me more about that wonderful store of yours. I am sure it will be a darling, because anything you have anything to do with is sure to be. Are you going to have a tea-room?"

Mary shook her head. "No," she said, laughing. "I think not. There's too much compet.i.tion."