“Not quite so long as that, Zoeth,” put in the smiling Shadrach.  “We’ll hang on to her for a spell, I shouldn’t wonder; but one of these days, a hundred years from now or such matter, there’s liable to be a good-lookin’ young feller sparkin’ ’round here and he’ll want to marry her and take her somewheres else.  What’ll you say when it comes to that, Mary-’Gusta?”

Mary-’Gusta thought it over.  “If ’twas a hundred years from now,” she said, “I guess he wouldn’t want me.”

The Captain laughed uproariously.  “Well, maybe we can discount that hundred some for cash,” he admitted.  “Make it twelve or fifteen years.  Then suppose somebody—­er—­er—­” with a wink at Zoeth—­“suppose Jimmie Bacheldor, we’ll say, comes and wants us to put you in his hands, what’ll you say then?”

The answer was prompt enough this time.

“I’ll say no,” asserted Mary-’Gusta, with decision.  “Jimmie Bacheldor hates to wash his hands; he told me so.”

All that summer she played about the house or at the store or on the beach and, when the fall term began, the partners sent her to school.  They were happy and proud men when Miss Dobson, the primary teacher, said the girl was too far advanced for the first class and entered her in the second.  “Just natural smartness,” Captain Shadrach declared.  “Natural smartness and nothin’ else.  She ain’t had a mite of advantages, but up she goes just the same.  Why, Teacher told me she considered her a reg’lar parachute.”

“A parachute’s somethin’ that comes down, ain’t it,” suggested Zoeth, remembering the balloon ascension he had seen at the county fair.

“Humph!  So ’tis.  Seems as if ’twasn’t parachute she said.  ’Twas—­’twas—­”

“Parasol?” suggested Isaiah, who was an interested listener.

“No, no; nor paralysis neither.  Paragon, that’s what ’twas.  Teacher said that child was a paragon.”

“What’s a paragon?” asked Mr. Chase.

“I don’t know.  But it’s what she is, anyway.”

The paragon continued to progress in her studies.  Also she continued, more and more, to take an interest in the housework and the affairs of her adopted uncles and Isaiah Chase.  Little by little changes came in the life of the family.  On one memorable Sunday Captain Shadrach attended church.  It was the first time in a good many years and whether the congregation or Zoeth or the Captain himself was the more astonished at the latter’s being there is a question.  Mary-’Gusta was not greatly astonished.  It was the result of careful planning on her part, planning which had as its object the relieving of Mr. Hamilton’s mind.  Zoeth never missed a Sunday service or a Friday night prayer meeting.  And, being sincerely religious, he was greatly troubled because his friend and partner took little interest in such things.

Shadrach’s aversion to churches dated back to a sermon preached by a former minister.  The subject of that sermon was Jonah and the whale.  The Captain, having been on several whaling voyages in his younger days, had his own opinion concerning the prophet’s famous adventure.