Her abrupt halt warned Sheila that there was somebody approaching.  Before she could turn to see who it was, the other girl ejaculated: 

“My goodness!  What is it—­a junk wagon?  Look at that horse, will you!  Say! who’s these folks?  What a pair of old dubs!”

Cap’n Ira and Prudence had returned somewhat earlier than Sheila had expected.  Old Queenie came up the lane and turned in at the open gateway beyond the garden.

The new girl tugged excitedly at Sheila’s arm.

“Say!  Who are they?” she demanded huskily.

“This is Cap’n Ball and Mrs. Ball,” was the reply, and the girl in possession hurried forward to help them out of the carriage.

“Ahoy, Ida May!” the captain hailed cheerfully.  “What’s the good word?”

He prepared to climb down.  The girl assisted Prudence first.

“Who’s that with you, Ida May?” asked the old woman.  Then, with keener eyes than the captain, she observed the change in the girl’s face.  “What’s happened?  Something has gone wrong, Ida May, I know.  What is it?”

“That—­that girl—­”

Sheila almost choked.  How could she prevaricate to the good old woman who had been so kind to her?

“Who is she, Ida May?”

“She says she is your niece,” whispered the girl.

“My niece?  Land’s sake!  I ain’t got no niece but you, Ida May.  Say, Ira, do you know this young woman?  She ain’t none o’ your relations, is she?”

Cap’n Ira came to the ground finally with a thump of his cane.  He straightened up and started at the new arrival.

“Red-headed, I swan!” he muttered.  “Never was a Ball that I know of with that color topknot.  And she looks like one o’ these sandpipers ye see along shore.  Look at that hat!”

“Ida May says she claims to be our niece,” Prudence told him.

“I swan!  I told you we was gettin’ mighty popular.”

Sheila, her limbs now trembling so that she feared she would fall, took Queenie by the head and backed the carriage around.  The old mare would have to be put in her stall and the carryall run under cover.  But the girl was fearful of moving out of earshot.

Cap’n Ira and Prudence approached the real Ida May.  The latter had been staring at them, marveling.  Unlike Sheila, almost everything that Ida May Bostwick thought was advertised upon her face.

“My goodness!” considered Ida May.  “What a pair of hicks!”

“You was lookin’ for somebody named Ball, I cal’late?” Cap’n Ira said within Sheila’s hearing as she led the gray mare away.

She could not catch the reply.  Whatever the real Ida May said, she could not stand by to deny it.  Besides, the matter must rest for the present on the evidence, and she did not know yet how much proof Ida May might be able to advance to strengthen her case.  If it rested upon mere assertion, then Sheila need merely deny its truth and hold her own!