“And how is business?” he asked.

“Tiptop!” declared Shadrach.

“It’s improvin’ consider’ble,” said Zoeth.

“It is a little better, but it must be far better before I am satisfied,” said Mary.

“How is the cottage trade?” asked Keith.

“Why, not so very good.  There aren’t many cottagers here yet.”

When Keith reached home he called his wife into consultation.

“Gertrude,” he asked, “where do we buy our household supplies, groceries and the like?”

“In Boston, most of them.  The others—­those I am obliged to buy here in South Harniss—­at that new store, Baker’s.”

“I want you to buy them all of Hamilton and Company hereafter.”

“That old-fogy place!  Why?”

“Because the partners, Captain Gould and the other old chap, are having a hard struggle to keep going and I want to help them.”

Mrs. Keith tossed her head.  “Humph!” she sniffed.  “I know why you are so interested.  It is because of that upstart girl you think is so wonderful, the one who has been boarding with Clara Wyeth.”

“You’re right, that’s just it.  She has given up her studies and her opportunities there in Boston and has come down here to help her uncles.  Clara writes me that she was popular there in the school, that the best people were her friends, and you know of her summer in Europe with Letitia Pease.  Letitia isn’t easy to please and she is enthusiastic about Mary Lathrop.  No ordinary girl could give up all that sort of thing and come back to the village where everyone knows her and go to keeping store again, and do it so cheerfully and sensibly and without a word of complaint.  She deserves all the help and support we and our friends can give her.  I mean to see that she has it.”

Mrs. Keith looked disgusted.  “You’re perfectly infatuated with that girl, John Keith,” she said.  “It is ridiculous.  If I were like some women I should be jealous.”

“If I were like some men you might be.  Now, Gertrude, you’ll buy in future from Hamilton and Company, won’t you?”

“I suppose so.  When your chin sets that way I know you’re going to be stubborn and I may as well give in first as last.  I’ll patronize your precious Mary-’Gusta, but I won’t associate with her.  You needn’t ask that.”

“Don’t you think we might wait until she asks it first?”

“Tut! tut!  Really, John, you disgust me.  I wonder you don’t order Sam to marry her.”

“From what Clara writes he might not have needed any orders if he had received the least encouragement from her.  Sam might do worse; I imagine he probably will.”

So, because John Keith’s chin was set, the Keith custom shifted to Hamilton and Company.  And because the Keiths were wealthy and influential, and because the head of the family saw that that influence was brought to bear upon his neighbors and acquaintances, their custom followed.  Hamilton and Company put a delivery wagon—­a secondhand one—­out on the road, and hired a distinctly secondhand boy to drive it.  And Mary and Shadrach and Zoeth and, in the evenings, the boy as well, were kept busy waiting on customers.  The books showed, since the silent partner took hold, a real and tangible profit, and the collection and payment of old debts went steadily on.