“She’s as sassy as a chipmunk.  I declare!  What would Cap’n Ira and Aunt Prue do with a girl like her around the house?  And the way she’s dressed!”

In his mind the idea germinated that he would be doing a far better thing if he did not go around to the employees’ door and wait for Ida May Bostwick.  What sort of life would she lead the two old people down there on Wreckers’ Head?  He actually shrank from being a party to such an arrangement.

Not for a moment did he think that Miss Bostwick might not jump at the chance to change her place of residence from a South End lodging house to the Ball homestead overlooking Big Wreck Cove and the sea.  He had seen that she was afraid of her boss in the store.  The rules there must be very strict.  He had noted that everything about the girl, her apparel and her ornaments, was cheap and tawdry.  She must be both poor and unhappy.  Why should she not jump at the chance of bettering herself?

What would Cap’n Ira say when he caught his first glimpse of that painted and powdered face?  How could good Aunt Prue take to her heart the bold, jeering shopgirl, evidently born and bred as far from the old standards of Cape Cod breeding as could be imagined?  No matter how fine a girl Sarah Honey was, her daughter was of a cheap city type.

But Tunis Latham did not stand in the position of a judge.  He had not been told to use his powers of observation before placing the Balls’ offer before Ida May Bostwick.  He had no discretion in the matter at all.

So he went around to the street behind Hoskin & Marl’s at the required time and spent five or ten minutes backed up against a blank wall under the sharp scrutiny of every girl who hurried out of the big store on her way to lunch.  Ida May came, at last.

Tunis Latham in his go-ashore uniform and cap was no unsightly figure.  A stern tranquillity of countenance lent him dignity.  He attracted a certain respect wherever he went, but, as has been said, there was nothing harsh in his appearance.

The girl gave him an appraising scrutiny as she walked toward him.  While covering those few yards she made up her mind about Tunis on several points.  One was that she would not lunch this noon at any cafeteria or automat!

“Really,” she said, with downcast glance, as the man got into step beside her, “I don’t feel that I know you well enough to talk to you at all, Mister—­Mister—­”

“My name’s Tunis Latham.  I’m owner and skipper of the schooner Seamew.  I live right handy to your uncle and aunt.”

“Goodness!  You don’t mean I’ve got an uncle and aunt down there on the Cape?  I never heard of them.”

“They are your great-uncle and great-aunt.  Aunt Prue must have been your mother’s own aunt.”

“So you are my Cousin—­er—­Tunis?”

His face flamed and he did not look at her.

“That doesn’t follow,” he said.  “Aunt Prue is my aunt only in a manner of speaking.  But she is your blood relation.”