The something was a long envelope with "Mrs. Barnes, Personal," written upon it. Thankful read the inscription.

"From Mr. Kendrick?" she repeated. "Which Mr. Kendrick?"

"Mr. John, the young one. Mr. Holliday's comin', though. He telephoned from Bayport this mornin'. Came down on the cars far's there last night, but he didn't dast to come no further 'count of bein' afraid to drive from the Centre in the storm. He's hired an automobile and is comin'

right over, he says. The message was for John Kendrick, but Dad took it.

What's in the envelope, Mrs. Barnes?"

Thankful slowly tore the end from the envelope. Emily stood at her elbow.

"What can it be, Auntie?" she asked, fearfully.

"I don't know. I'm afraid to look. Oh, dear! It's somethin' bad, I know.

Somethin' to do with that Holliday Kendrick; it must be or he wouldn't have come to East Wellmouth today. I--I--well, I must look, of course.

Oh, Emily, and we thought this was goin' to be a merry Christmas, after all."

The enclosure was a long, legal-looking doc.u.ment. Thankful unfolded it, read a few lines and then stopped reading.

"Why--why--" she stammered.

"What is it, Auntie?" pleaded Emily.

"It--I can't make out. I MUST be crazy, or--or somebody is. It looks like--Read it, Emily; read it out loud."

CHAPTER XVII

Captain Obed Bangs rose at his usual hour that Christmas morning, and the hour was an early one. When he looked from his bedroom window the clouds were breaking and a glance at his barometer, hung on the wall just beside that window, showed the gla.s.s to be rising and confirmed the promise of a fair day. He dressed and came downstairs. Hannah Parker came down soon afterward. The captain wished her a merry Christmas.

Miss Parker shook her head; she seemed to be in a pessimistic mood.

"I'm much obliged to you, Cap'n Bangs," she said, "and I'm sure I wish you the same. But I don't know; don't seem as if I was liable to have many more merry Christmases in this life. No, merry Christmases ain't for me. I'm a second fiddle nowadays and I cal'late that's what I'm foreordinated to be from now on."

The captain didn't understand.

"Second fiddle," he repeated. "What have you got to do with fiddlin', for goodness' sakes?"

"Nothin', of course. I don't mean a real fiddle. I mean I shan't never be my own mistress any more. I've been layin' awake thinkin' about it and shiverin', 'twas so damp and chilly up in my room. There's a loose shingle right over a knot hole that's abreast a crack in my bedroom wall, and it lets in the dampness like a sieve. I've asked Kenelm to fix it MORE times; but no, all he cares to do is look out for himself and that inmate. If SHE had a loose shingle he'd fix it quick enough. All I could do this mornin' was lay to bed there and shiver and pull up the quilt and think and think. It kept comin' over me more and more."

"The quilt, you mean? That's what you wanted it to do, wasn't it?"

"Not the quilt. The thought of the lonesome old age that's comin' to me when Kenelm's married. I've had him to look after for so long. I've been my own boss, as they say."

She might have added, "And Kenelm's, too," but Captain Obed added it for her, in his mind. He laughed.

"That's all right, Hannah," he observed, by way of consolation. "Kenelm ain't married yet. When he is you can help his wife look out for him.

Either that or get married. Why don't you get married, Hannah?"

"Humph! Don't be silly, Obed Bangs."

"That ain't silliness, that's sense. All you need to do is just h'ist the signal, 'Consort wanted,' and you'd have one alongside in no time.

There's Caleb Hammond, for instance; he's a widower and--eh! look out!"

Miss Parker had dropped the plate she was just putting down upon the table. Fortunately it fell only a few inches and did not break.

"What do you mean by that?" she demanded sharply.

"I meant the plate. Little more and you'd have sent it to glory."

"Never you mind the plate. I can look out for my own crockery. 'Twas cracked anyhow. And I guess you're cracked, too," she added. "Talkin'

about my--my marryin' Caleb Hammond. What put that in your head?"

"I don't know. I just--"

"Well, don't be silly. When I marry Caleb Hammond," she added with emphasis, "'twill be after THIS."

"So I cal'lated. I didn't think you'd married him afore this. There now, you missed a chance, Hannah. You and he ought to have got married that time when you went away together."

Miss Parker turned pale. "When we went--away--TOGETHER!" she faltered.

"WHAT are you talkin' about?"

"When you went over to the Cattle Show that time."

"Is that what you meant?"

"Sartin. What are you glarin' at me that way for? You ain't been away together any other time, have you? No, Hannah, that was your chance. You and Caleb might have been married in the balloon, like the couples we read about in the papers. Ho! ho! Think of the advertisin' you'd have had! 'A high church weddin'.' 'Bride and groom up in the air.' Can't you see those headlines?"

Hannah appeared more relieved than annoyed.

"Humph!" she sniffed. "Well, I should say YOU was up in the air, Obed Bangs. What's the matter with you this mornin'? Has the rain soaked into your head? It seems to be softenin' up pretty fast. If you're so set on somebody gettin' married why don't you get married yourself? You've been what the minister calls 'unattackted' all your life."

The minister had said "unattached," but Captain Obed did not offer to correct the quotation. He joked no more and, during breakfast, was silent and absent-minded.

After breakfast he went out for a walk. The storm had gullied the hills and flooded the hollows. There were pools of water everywhere, shining cold and steely in the winter sunshine. The captain remembered the low ground in which the barn and outbuildings upon the "Cap'n Abner place"

stood, and judged that he and Kenelm might have to do some rescue work among the poultry later on. He went back to the house to suggest that work to Mr. Parker himself.

Kenelm and his sister were evidently in the midst of a dispute. The former was seated at the breakfast table and Hannah was standing by the kitchen door looking at him.

"Goin' off to work Christmas Day!" she said, as the captain entered. "I should think you might stay home with me THAT day, if no other. 'Tain't the work you're so anxious to get to. It's that precious inmate of yours."

Kenelm's answer was as surprising as it was emphatic.

"Darn the inmate!" he shouted. "I wish to thunder I'd never seen her!"

Captain Obed whistled. Miss Parker staggered, but she recovered promptly.