The partners, Shadrach and Zoeth, were no longer silent and glum.  The Captain whistled and sang and was in high spirits most of the time.  At home he was his old self, chaffing Isaiah about the housekeeping, taking a mischievous delight in shocking his friend and partner by irreverent remarks concerning Jonah or some other Old Testament personage, and occasionally, although not often, throwing out a sly hint to Mary about the frequency of letters from the West.  Mary had told her uncles of Crawford’s leaving Boston and returning to Nevada because of his father’s ill health.  The only item of importance she had omitted to tell was that of the proposal of marriage.  She could not speak of that even to them.  They would ask what her answer was to be, and if she loved Crawford.  How could she answer that—­truthfully—­without causing them to feel that they were blocking her way to happiness?  They felt that quite keenly enough, as it was.

So when Captain Shad declared the illness of the South Harniss postmaster—­confined to his bed with sciatica—­to be due to his having “stooped to pick up one of them eighty-two page Wild West letters of yours, Mary-’Gusta, and ‘twas so heavy he sprained his back liftin’ it,” Mary only laughed and ventured the opinion that the postmaster’s sprained back, if he had one, was more likely due to a twist received in trying to read both sides of a postcard at once.  Which explanation, being of the Captain’s own brand of humor, pleased the latter immensely.

“Maybe you’re right, Mary-’Gusta,” he chuckled.  “Maybe that’s what ‘twas.  Seth [the postmaster] is pure rubber so far as other folks’ mail is concerned; maybe he stretched the rubber too far this time and it snapped.”

Zoeth did not joke much—­joking was not in his line—­but he showed his relief at the improvement in the firm’s affairs in quieter but as unmistakable ways.  When Mary was at the desk in the evenings after the store had closed, busy with the books, he would come and sit beside her, saying little but occasionally laying his hand gently on her shoulder or patting her arm and regarding her with a look so brimful of love and gratitude that it made her feel almost guilty and entirely unworthy.

“Don’t, Uncle Zoeth,” she protested, on one such occasion.  “Don’t look at me like that.  I—­I—­Really, you make me feel ashamed.  I haven’t done anything.  I am not doing half enough.”

He shook his head.

“You’re doin’ too much, I’m afraid, Mary-’Gusta,” he said.  “You’re givin’ up everything a girl like you had ought to have and that your Uncle Shadrach and I had meant you should have.  You’re givin’ it up just for us and it ain’t right.  We ain’t worthy of it.”

“Hush, hush, Uncle Zoeth!  Please!  When I think what you have given up for me—­”