The Christmas business was very good indeed.  Shadrach, Mary, Annabel, and Simeon were kept busy.  Customers came, not only from South Harniss, but from West and East Harniss and even from Orham and Bayport.  The newspaper advertisements were responsible for this in the beginning, but those who first came told others that the best stock of Christmas goods in Ostable County was to be found at the store of Hamilton and Company, in South Harniss, and so the indirect, word-of-mouth advertising, which is the best and most convincing kind, spread and brought results.

Christmas itself was a rather dreary day.  Zoeth, although improving, was not yet strong enough to leave his room, and so the Christmas dinner lacked his presence at the table.  Mary and Shadrach sat with him for an hour or so, but the doctor and nurse had cautioned them against exciting him, so, although the Captain joked continually, his jokes were rather fickle and in his mind was his partner’s prophecy of two years before—­that the tide which had, up to that time, been coming in for them, would soon begin to go out.  Shadrach could not help feeling that it had been going out, for poor Zoeth at any rate.  The doctor declared it was coming in again, but how slowly it came!  And how far would it come?  This was the first Christmas dinner he had eaten in years without seeing Mr. Hamilton’s kindly, patient face at the other side of the table.

And Mary, although she tried to appear gay and lighthearted, laughing at her uncle’s jokes and attempting a few of her own, was far from happy.  Work, Captain Shad’s recipe for producing forgetfulness, had helped, but it had not cured.  And when, as on a holiday like this, or at night after she had gone to bed, there was no work to occupy her mind, she remembered only too well.  Crawford had written her, as he promised, after his return home.  He wrote that he and his father were reconciled and that he had resumed his studies.  The letter was brave and cheerful, there was not a hint of whining or complaint in it.  Mary was proud of him, proud of his courage and self-restraint.  She could read between the lines and the loneliness and hopelessness were there but he had done his best to conceal them for her sake.  If he felt resentment toward her, he did not show it.  Lonely and hopeless as she herself was, her heart went out to him, but she did not repent her decision.  It was better, ever and ever so much better, as it was.  He would forget and be happy by and by, and would never know his father’s shameful story.  And poor Uncle Zoeth would never know, either.  As for her—­well, she must work, work harder than ever.  Thank God there were six working days in the week!