“Oh!” gasped Sheila.

“Now, gal,” said Cap’n Ira firmly, “don’t you let your tender heart deceive you.  That crazy critter ain’t worth worrying about.  She shan’t be hurt.  But I won’t have her coming round here frightening you and Prudence.  No, sir!”

“Quite right,” said Tunis, agreeing.

“Oh, Tunis!” murmured the girl.

“But she will make talk.  No doubt she will make talk,” said Prudence in a worried tone.  “We ought to stop her, somehow, from telling such things about our Ida May.”

“Does she want money?” asked Cap’n Ira gruffly.  “She talked as though she did.”

“I think to offer her money would be the very worst possible way of shutting her up,” said Tunis.  “She wants to come here and live and be accepted as your niece.”

“I never did!” gasped Prudence.

“She says nothing else will suit her.  She seems to think she can prove what she had claimed.  I think the best thing to do is to let her try it.”

Sheila could not eat.  She merely stared from one to the other of the three and listened to the discussion.  In no way could she see a shadow of escape from ultimate disaster; yet she saw that Tunis was determined to fight it out on this line, to deny the stranger’s claim and hold to what had already been gained for the girl in possession!

“Well,” Prudence said, with a sigh, “I can see plainly it is going to stir up a puddle of muddy water.  Unless she says or does something that makes the authorities take her and put her away, there will be them that will believe her—­or half believe her.”

“Let ’em talk,” growled Cap’n Ira. “’Twon’t be the first time Big Wreck Cove folks got a mouthful to chew.”

“But it will hurt Ida May,” said Prudence, her voice trembling, as she squeezed the girl’s hand and held it.

“’Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me,’” began Cap’n Ira.  Then he broke off in anger when he saw the girl’s face, and exclaimed:  “But, I swan!  They’ll keep you dodging, and that’s a fact!  Ought to be some way of shutting her up, Tunis.”

“I don’t know how that is going to be done.  Not just at first, anyway.  Perhaps something will turn up.  And, anyway, she hasn’t begun to talk yet.”

“It’s like being tied down to one o’ them railroad tracks and waiting for the fast express to come along and crunch ye,” grumbled the old man.  “I know how Ida May feels.  But you keep a stiff upper lip, my gal.  You’ve got plenty of friends that won’t listen to any such crazy notions as that other gal’s got in her noodle.”

In this manner the old folks comforted themselves in part.  But nothing that was said could comfort Sheila.  Tunis smoked a pipe with Cap’n Ira after supper, while the girl cleared off the table and washed and dried the dishes.  Then he got her outside just after he had bidden Cap’n Ira and Prudence good night.