“Sane—­yes!  As for being sensible, that is another thing,” confessed Elder Minnett.

“Huh!  What do you mean by that?” asked Cap’n Ira curiously.

“She has told her story in full to me, and told it twice alike,” said the grim-visaged minister, looking at Sheila as he answered the query.  “An insane person is not so likely to do that, I believe.  But she is not what I would call a sensible young woman.  Not at all.”

“I should say not!” gasped Prudence.

“But I have heard her, and I have reflected on what she has said.  I do not see, if she is an impostor, how she could have made up that story.”

“Then she must be loony,” muttered Cap’n Ira.

“I presume she told the same story to you that she did to me,” pursued Elder Minnett.  “I do not understand Tunis Latham’s part in it, but the rest of her story seems quite reasonable.”

“Reasonable?” repeated Prudence, with some warmth.  “Do you call it reasonable to say what she did about Ida May?”

“In speaking of the young woman’s reasonableness I mean in regard to the personal details she gave me.  What she said in her anger to, or of, other people has no influence whatsoever on my judgment.”

“Well, it has on mine!” exclaimed Cap’n Ira.  “I’d have drove out a dozen gals that spoke as she did to Prudence and Ida May—­crazy or not!”

“You would be wrong, Cap’n Ball,” said the elder severely.

“Well, let’s have the p’ints the girl makes!” growled the old shipmaster.  “I will listen to ’em.”

Elder Minnett bowed formally and began Ida May’s story, checking off the several assertions she had made when she was at the Ball house far more clearly than the girl herself had done.  As Sheila listened, her heart sank even lower.  It was so very reasonable!  How could the Balls fail to be impressed?

But Cap’n Ira and Prudence listened with more of a puzzled expression in their countenances than anything else.  It seemed altogether wild and improbable to them.  Why!  There sat Ida May before them.  There could not be two Ida May Bostwicks!

“Say!” exclaimed Cap’n Ira suddenly, after Elder Minnett had concluded, “that girl says she worked at Hoskin & Marl’s?”

“Yes.”

“Why, ain’t that where you worked, Ida May?”

“Yes,” was Sheila’s faint admission.

“You never see her there, did you?”

“I do not remember of having seen her until she came here,” the girl said quite truthfully.

“Ought to be some way of proving up that,” muttered Cap’n Ira.

“I have written to Hoskin & Marl, at the other young woman’s instigation, and have asked about her,” said Elder Minnett.

“Well, I never!” gasped Prudence, and her withered, old face grew pink.

“I hope you will not take offense,” said the visitor evenly.  “You must understand that the young woman has come to me in trouble, and it is my duty to aid her if I can—­in any proper way.  That is my office. Any young woman”—­he looked directly at Sheila again as he said it—­“will find in me an adviser and a friend whenever she may need my help.”