The dress was whipped out of Aunt Prue’s hands.  She herself, as Cap’n Ira had warned her, was cast, face downward, into the half-filled clothes basket.  The blue dress was whirled high in the air, skirt downward.  Before the old man was warned by Prudence’s muffled scream that something had gone wrong, the starched dress plumped down over his head and shoulders, and he was bound fast and blinded in its folds.

“Drat the thing!  What did I tell ye?” bawled Cap’n Ira.  “Take this here thing off’n me!  Want to make me more of an old Betty than I be a’ready—­a-dressin’ me in women’s clothes?  I swan!”

CHAPTER XII

A NEW HAND AT THE HELM

Tunis ran to the old man’s rescue, but it was the girl who lifted Prudence from out the laundry-basket.

“Drat the thing!” ejaculated Cap’n Ira, fighting off the starched dress.  “Feel like I was being smothered by a complete suit of sails.  That you, Tunis?”

“Yes, Cap’n Ira.  You’re all right now.  Hold on!  Don’t let’s mess up Aunt Prue’s wrapper more than can be helped.  ’Vast there!”

“I swan!  Don’t it beat all what a pickle we get into?  We ain’t no more fit to be alone, me an’ Prue, than a pair o’ babies.  For the lan’s sake, Tunis!  Who is that?”

He was staring at the girl, who led forward the trembling old woman, her strong, young arms about the thin shoulders.  Prudence was tearful but smiling.

“This is the girl you sent me for,” said the captain of the Seamew.

The girl was smiling, too.  To the delight of the young man there was no suspicion of fear or shyness in her expression.  Her eyes were luminous.  Her smile he thought would have ravished the heart of a misogynist.

“I swan!” murmured Cap’n Ira, almost prayerfully.

“Ain’t she pretty, Ira?” cried Prudence, almost girlish herself in her new happiness.  “Just like Sarah Honey was when she was Ida May’s age.  And ain’t it sweet, her coming to us this way?  She’s brought her trunk.  She’s going to stay.”

“And I know I shall be happy here, Uncle Ira,” said the girl, giving him her hand.

Cap’n Ira’s smile was as ecstatic as that of his wife.  He looked sidewise at Tunis, a glance of considerable admiration.

“It takes you to do it, Tunis.  I couldn’t have brought home a nicer lookin’ gal myself.  I swan!”

“Now, you hesh your foolin’, Ira,” cried his wife, while the younger man’s blush admitted unmistakably his feelings.  “Don’t you mind him, Ida May.  Come into the house, now, and you, too, Tunis.  We’ll have supper in a jiffy.”

“No,” said the captain of the Seamew.  “I must be getting on.  Aunt Lucretia will be expecting me, for, of course, she saw the schooner heading in for the cove.  Good night, Ida May.”  He shook hands with her quietly.  “I know you will be happy here, with your own folks.”