Mrs. Coffin pulled forward one of the kitchen chairs.  He seated himself on it and it groaned under his weight.

“Whew!” he whistled.  “Never made to stand rough weather, was it?  Well, ain’t you glad?”

Keziah looked at him gravely.

“You know I’m glad, Nat,” she said.

“So?  I hoped you would be, but I did want to hear you say it.  Now you come to anchor yourself and let’s have a talk.  I’ve been countin’ on it ever since we set tops’ls off Surinam.”

The housekeeper took the other chair.

“How are you—­” she began.  He stopped her.

“S-shh!” he interrupted.  “Don’t say anything for a minute.  Let me look at you.  Just as clean and wholesome and good-lookin’ as ever.  They don’t make girls like that anywhere else but down on this old sand bar.  Not a day older, by the jumpin’—­”

She held up her hand.

“Hush, Nat,” she protested; “don’t talk foolish.  Girl?  Not a day older?  Why, if feelin’s count for anything, I’m as old as Methusaleh.  Haven’t I had enough to make me old?”

He was grave immediately.

“I beg your pardon, Keziah,” he said.  “I’m a dough head, that’s a fact.  I hadn’t forgot about Sol, but I was so glad to be home again and to see dad and Grace and the old town and you that everything else flew out of my mind.  Poor Sol!  I liked him.”

“He liked you, too.  No wonder, considerin’ what you did to—­”

“Belay!  Never mind that.  Poor chap!  Well, he’s rid of his sufferin’s at last.  Tell me about it, if you can without bringin’ all the trouble back too plain.”

So she told him of her brother’s sickness and death, of having to give up the old home, and, finally, of her acceptance of the housekeeper’s position.  He listened, at first with sympathy and then with suppressed indignation.

“By the jumpin’ Moses!” he exclaimed.  “And Elkanah was goin’ to turn you out of house and home.  The mean, pompous old—­”

“Hush! hush! he’s in there with Mr. Ellery.”

“Who?  Elkanah?”

“Yes; they’re in the study.”

“By the jumpin’—­Let me talk to him for a few minutes.  I’ll tell him what’s good for his health.  You just listen.”

He rose from the chair, but she made him sit down again.

“No, no,” she protested.  “He wasn’t to blame.  He had to have his rent and I didn’t feel that I could afford to keep up a whole house, just for myself.  And, besides, I ought to be thankful to him, I suppose.  He got me this place.”

“He did?”

“Yes, he did.  I rather guess Zeb Mayo or somebody may have suggested it to him first, but—­”

“Humph!  I rather guess so, too.”

“Well, you can’t always tell.  Sometimes when you really get inside of a person you find a generous streak that—­”

“Not in a Daniels.  Anybody that got inside of Elkanah would find nothin’ but Elkanah there, and ‘twould be crowded at that.  So he’s talkin’ to the new parson, hey?  Bossin’ him, too, I’ll bet.”