“Well, well, Shadrach!”

“No, ’tain’t well; it’s bad.  He’s gone, and—­and you and me that was with him for years and years, his very best friends on earth as you might say, wasn’t with him when he died.  If it hadn’t been for her he’d have stayed in South Harniss where he belonged.  Consarn women!  They’re responsible for more cussedness than the smallpox.  ’When a man marries his trouble begins’; that’s gospel, too.”

Zoeth did not answer.

Captain Gould, after a sidelong glance at his companion, took a hand from the reins and laid it on the Hamilton knee.

“I’m sorry, Zoeth,” he said, contritely; “I didn’t mean to—­to rake up bygones; I was blowin’ off steam, that’s all.  I’m sorry.”

“I know, Shadrach.  It’s all right.”

“No, ’tain’t all right; it’s all wrong.  Somebody ought to keep a watch on me, and when they see me beginnin’ to get hot, set me on the back of the stove or somewheres; I’m always liable to bile over and scald the wrong critter.  I’ve done that all my life.  I’m sorry, Zoeth, you know I didn’t mean—­”

“I know, I know.  Ah hum!  Poor Marcellus!  Here’s the first break in the old firm, Shadrach.”

“Yup.  You and me are all that’s left of Hall and Company.  That is—­”

He stopped short just in time and roared a “Git dap” at the horse.  He had been on the point of saying something which would have been far more disastrous than his reference to the troubles following marriage.  Zoeth was apparently not curious.  To his friend’s great relief he did not wait for the sentence to be finished, nor did he ask embarrassing questions.  Instead he said: 

“I wonder what’s goin’ to become of that child, Mary Lathrop’s girl.  Who do you suppose likely will take charge of her?”

“I don’t know.  I’ve been wonderin’ that myself, Zoeth.”

“Kind of a cute little thing, she was, too, as I recollect her.  I presume likely she’s grown up consid’ble since.  You remember how she set and looked at us that last time we was over to see Marcellus, Shadrach?”

“Remember?  How she looked at me, you mean!  Shall I ever forget it?  I’d just had my hair cut by that new barber, Sim Ellis, that lived here ’long about then, and I told him to cut off the ends.  He thought I meant the other ends, I cal’late, for I went to sleep in the chair, same as I generally do, and when I woke up my head looked like the main truck of the old Faraway.  All it needed was to have the bald place gilded.  I give you my word that if I hadn’t been born with my ears set wing and wing like a schooner runnin’ afore the wind I’d have been smothered when I put my hat on—­nothin’ but them ears kept it propped up off my nose.  You remember that haircut, Zoeth.  Well, all the time you and me was in Marcellus’s settin’-room that stepchild of his just set and looked at my head.  Never took her eyes off it.  If she’d said anything ’twouldn’t have been so bad;