“What’s this?” demanded Professor Grayling, sitting up so suddenly on the couch that Diddimus spat and jumped off in haste and anger.

“I—­I was just going to tell you about Lawford,” Louise said in a small voice.

“Oh, yes!  A little thing like your having a lover slipped your mind, I suppose?” demanded her father.

“And a young man of most excellent character,” put in the surprising Mrs. Conroth.  “Perhaps his family is not all that might be desired; but I. Tapp is e-nor-mously wealthy and I understand he will settle a good income upon Ford.  Besides, the young man has some sort of interest in the manufacturing of candies.”

Trust the Lady from Poughkeepsie to put the best foot forward when it became necessary to do so.  The professor was gazing quizzically at the flushed face of his daughter.

“So that is what you have been doing this summer, is it?” he said.

“That—­and looking after Cap’n Abe,” confessed Louise.

“I’ll have to look into this further.”

“Isn’t it terrible?” interrupted Mrs. Conroth.  “They say the two brothers are out on that wreck and they cannot be reached until the gale subsides.  And then it will be too late to save them.  Well, Louise, that old sailor was certainly a brave man.  I am really sorry I spoke so harshly about him.  They tell me it was he who put your father in the boat.  I hope there is some way you can fittingly show your appreciation, Ernest.”

“I hope so,” said Professor Grayling grimly.

Lawford came to the store before bedtime—­very white and serious-looking.  He had tried with the patrol crew to launch the boat again and go to the rescue of the two old men supposed to be upon the wreck.  But the effort had been fruitless.  Until the gale fell and the tide turned they could not possibly get out to Gull Rocks.

“A brave man is Cap’n Amazon,” Lawford Tapp said.  “And if Cap’n Abe was in the schooner’s crew——­Why, Professor Grayling! surely you must remember him?  Not a big man, but with heavy gray beard and mustache—­and very bald.  Mild blue eyes and very gentle-spoken.  Don’t you remember him in the crew of the Curlew?”

“It would seem quite probable that he was aboard,” Professor Grayling returned, “minding his p’s and q’s,” as Louise had warned him.  “But you see, Mr. Tapp, being only a passenger, I had really little association with the men forward.  You know how it is aboard ship—­strict discipline, and all that.”

“Yes, sir; I see.  And, after all, Cap’n Abe was a man that could easily be overlooked.  Not assertive at all.  Not like Cap’n Amazon.  Quite timid and retiring by nature.  Don’t you say so, Louise?”

“Oh, absolutely!” agreed the girl.  “And yet, when you come to think of it, Uncle Abram is a wonderful man.”

“I don’t see how you can say so,” the young man said.  “It’s Cap’n Amazon who is wonderful.  There were other men down on the beach better able to handle an oar than he.  But he took the empty seat in the lifeboat when he was called without saying ‘yes or no’!  And he pulled with the best of us.”