“Oh, Uncle Amazon!  I think he is a very intelligent young man.  Only he wastes his time so!”

“He knows enough book l’arnin’, I do allow,” agreed Cap’n Amazon.  “But fritters away his time as you say.  They all do that over to Tapp P’int, I cal’late.”

“I wonder how it came to be called Tapp Point?” Louise asked, with a suddenly sharpened curiosity.

“’Cause it’s belonged to the Tapps since away back,—­or, so Cap’n Joab says.  That sand heap never was wuth a punched nickel a ton till these city folks began to build along The Beaches.”

Louise, in her own mind, immediately constructed another theory about Lawford Tapp, “the fisherman’s son.”  The sandy point had been sold to the builder of the very ornate villa now crowning it, and the proceeds of that sale had paid for the Merry Andrew sloop and the expensive fishing rod and the clothes of superquality which the young man wore.

She shrank, however, from commenting upon this extravagant and spendthrift trait in his character, even to Uncle Amazon.  Nor would she have spoken to anybody else upon the subject.

Something had happened to Louise Grayling on this adventurous afternoon—­something of which she scarcely dared think, let alone talk!

The grip of fear at her heart when she thought Lawford was drowning had startled her as much as the accident itself.  She had seen men in peril before—­in deadly peril—­without feeling any personal terror for their fate.

In that moment when Lawford was sinking and she was preparing to leap to his aid, Louise had realized this fact.  And in her inmost soul she admitted—­with a thrill that shook her physically as well as spiritually—­that her interest in this Cape Cod fisherman’s son was an interest rooted in her inmost being.

The incident of the wrecked sea chest held her attention in only a secondary degree.  All through supper she was listening for Betty Gallup’s heavy step.  She knew she could not sleep that night without knowing how Lawford was.

For the very reason that she felt so deeply regarding it, she shrank from talking with Cap’n Amazon of the accident that had happened to Lawford.  She was glad the substitute storekeeper had “gone for’ard” again to attend to customers when Betty came clumping up the back steps.

“He’s all right, Miss Lou,” said the kindly woman, patting the girl’s hand.  “I waited to see Doc Ambrose when he come back from the P’int.  He says there ain’t a thing the matter with him that vinegar an’ brown paper won’t cure.

“But land sakes!  Miss Lou, ain’t this an awful thing ’bout your Uncle Abe’s chest?  That old pirate knows more’n he’d ought to ’bout what’s come o’ Cap’n Abe, even if they ain’t brought it home to him yit.”

“Now, Betty, I wish you wouldn’t,” begged the girl.  “Why should you give currency to such foolish gossip?”

“What foolish gossip?” snapped the woman.