“No, no!” she sobbed.  “Don’t let her come here, Ira.  We don’t want her.  We don’t want anybody but Ida May whom we love so dear, and who we know loves us.  We can’t do it, Elder Minnett!  Why, if they should come and tell me—­and prove it—­that Ida May wasn’t our niece and that other girl was, I couldn’t bear the creature ’round.  No, I couldn’t.  I couldn’t forgive anybody that would separate us from this dear, dear girl!”

Cap’n Ira had got upon his feet and was leaning forward on his cane.  With a shaking finger he drew the elder’s attention to the two women, rocking in each other’s arms.

“You hear that?  You see that?” demanded the captain brokenly, the tears starting from his own eyes and finding gutters down his cleanly shaved cheeks.  “That’s your answer, Elder!  You have some idea how Prudence and I longed for young company in this house, and somebody to help and comfort us. And we got her.

“Ida May come to us like the falling of manna in the wilderness for them spent and wandering Israelites.  She has been to us more than ever we dared hope for.  If she was our own child and had growed up here on Wreckers’ Head our own born daughter, I couldn’t think no more of her.

“And you come here and ask us to give countenance for a moment to a half-witted girl that says she belongs here in Ida May’s place, and claiming Ida May’s name.  More than that, she saying that our own girl that we love so is a liar and an impostor and altogether bad—­such as she must be if she had fooled us so.  I swan!  Elder, I should think you’d have more sense.”  And Cap’n Ira concluded abruptly and with a return to his usual self-control.

The silence which ensued was only broken by the old woman’s sobs.  Cap’n Ira, frankly wiping his own eyes with the great silk handkerchief which he usually flourished when he took snuff, strode across the room and patted Prudence’s withered shoulder.  He said nothing, nor did the elder.  It was Sheila who broke the silence at last.

She had stood up.  Now she put Prudence tenderly into Cap’n Ira’s arms.  She gave him, too, such a thankful, beaming glance that the old man was almost staggered.  For he had not seen one of those smiles for more than two days.

“Elder Minnett,” Sheila said, and her voice was quite steady, “I think it is my place to speak.”

“Yes?” was the noncommittal response of the grim old minister.

“I should not think for a moment of doubting your judgment in such a matter.  If you say Cap’n Ira and Mrs. Ball should receive this—­this girl here while the matter is being examined, I hope they will agree with you and allow her to come.”

“Why, Ida May!” gasped Prudence.

“That gal’s an angel!  She ain’t nothing but an angel!” marveled Cap’n Ira.

“But I think,” said Sheila, “that the girl should be made to promise that while she is here, and if she comes here, that she will not speak to anybody outside this room at the present time of the claim she makes—­especially as it seems to affect Captain Latham.”