“Yes,” he said.  “Well, I—­I kind of cal’lated that would come some day or other.  It’s all right, Mary-’Gusta.  Zoeth and me have talked it over and all we want is to see you happy.  If you said yes to him, Zoeth and I’ll say ‘God bless you’ to both of you.”

She reached for his hand and lifted it to her lips.  “I know you would,” she said.  “All your lives you have been thinking of others and not of yourselves.  But I didn’t say yes, Uncle Shad.  I am not going to be married now or by and by.  I don’t want to be.  I am the silent partner of Hamilton and Company.  I am a business woman and I am going to work—­really work—­from now on.  No, you mustn’t ask me any more questions.  We’ll try to forget it all.  Kiss me, Uncle Shad, dear.  That’s it.  Now you go down to supper.  I shall stay here; I am not hungry tonight.”

CHAPTER XXVI

Captain Shad did ask more questions, of course.  He asked no more that evening—­he judged it wisest not to do so; but the next day, seizing an opportunity when he and his niece were alone, he endeavored to learn a little more concerning her reasons for dismissing Crawford.  The Captain liked young Smith, he had believed Mary liked him very much, and, although he could not help feeling a guilty sense of relief because the danger that he and Zoeth might have to share her affections with someone else was, for the time at least, out of the way, he was puzzled and troubled by the abruptness of the dismissal.  There was something, he felt sure, which he did not understand.

“Of course, Mary-’Gusta,” he said, “I ain’t askin’ anything—­that is, I don’t mean to put my oar in about what you told me last night, but—­well, you see, Zoeth and me was beginnin’ to feel that ’twas pretty nigh a settled thing between you and that young man.”

Mary was sitting at the desk—­she and her uncle were at the store together—­and she looked up from the ledger over which she had been bending and shook her head reproachfully.  She looked tired and worn, so it seemed to Captain Shadrach, as if she had not slept well the night before, or perhaps for several nights.

“Uncle Shad,” she said, “what did I tell you?”

“Eh?  Why, you told me—­You know what you told me, Mary-’Gusta.  What do you ask that for?”

“Because I think you have forgotten the most important part of it.  I told you we were going to forget it all.  And we are.  We are not going to speak of it again.”

“But, Mary-’Gusta, why—­”

“No, Uncle Shad.”

“But do just tell me this much; if you don’t I shan’t rest in peace:  you didn’t send him away on account of Zoeth and me?  It wan’t just because you thought we needed you?”

“No, Uncle Shad.”

“Then—­”

“That’s all.  It’s over with; it’s done with forever.  If you really care about me, Uncle Shad—­and sometimes, you know, I almost suspect that you really do—­you will never, never say another word about it.  Now come here and tell me about this account of Heman Rodger’s.  Isn’t it time we tried to get a payment from him?”