Jed, of course, denied that he was blushing.  His fair tormentor had no mercy.

“You must be,” she insisted.  “At any rate your face is very, very red.  I’ll leave it to Father.  Isn’t his face red, Father?”

“Red as a flannel lung-protector,” declared Captain Sam, who was never known to contradict his only daughter, nor, so report affirmed, deny a request of hers.

“Of course it is,” triumphantly.  “And it can’t be the heat, because it isn’t at all warm here.”

Poor Jed, the long-suffering, was goaded into a mild retort.

“There’s consider’ble hot air in here some spells,” he drawled, mournfully.  Miss Hunniwell went away reaffirming her belief that Mr. Winslow’s friendship for the daughter was merely a strategical advance with the mother as the ultimate objective.

“You’ll see, Father,” she prophesied, mischievously.  “We shall hear of his ‘keeping company’ with Mrs. Armstrong soon.  Oh, he couldn’t escape even if he wanted to.  These young widows are perfectly irresistible.”

When they were a safe distance from the windmill shop the captain cautioned his daughter.

“Maud,” he said, “you’d better not tease Jed too much about that good-lookin’ tenant of his.  He’s so queer and so bashful that I’m afraid if you do he’ll take a notion to turn the Armstrongs out when this month’s up.”

Miss Hunniwell glanced at him from the corner of her eye.

“Suppose he does?” she asked.  “What of it?  She isn’t a great friend of yours, is she, Father?”

It was the captain’s turn to look embarrassed.

“No, no, course she ain’t,” he declared, hastily.  “All I’ve been thinkin’ is that Jed ought to have a tenant in that house of his, because he needs the money.  And from what I’ve been able to find out about this Mrs. Armstrong she’s a real nice genteel sort of body, and—­and—­er—­”

“And she’s very sweet and very pretty and so, of course, naturally, all the men, especially the middle-aged men—­”

Captain Sam interrupted explosively.  “Don’t be so foolish!” he ordered.  “If you don’t stop talkin’ such nonsense I’ll—­I don’t know what I’ll do to you.  What do you suppose her bein’ sweet and good-lookin’ has got to do with me?  Gracious king!  I’ve got one good-lookin’—­er—­that is to say, I’ve got one young female to take care of now and that’s enough, in all conscience.”

His daughter pinched his arm.

“Oh, ho!” she observed.  “You were going to say she was good-looking and then you changed your mind.  Don’t you think this young female—­what a word! you ought to be ashamed of it—­don’t you think she is good-looking, Daddy, dear?”

She looked provokingly up into his face and he looked fondly down into hers.

“Don’t you?” she repeated.

“We-ll, I—­I don’t know as I’d want to go so far as to say that.  I presume likely her face might not stop a meetin’-house clock on a dark night, but—­”