Captain Shadrach was inclined to be angry, but, although he would not have admitted it, he realized the truth of this frank statement.  Mary-’Gusta was pretty, she was more than that, and the line was already forming.  Jimmie Bacheldor had long ago ceased to be a competitor; that friendship had ended abruptly at the time of David’s narrow escape; but there were others, plenty of them.  Daniel Higgins, son of Mr. Solomon Higgins, the local lumber dealer and undertaker, was severely smitten.  Dan was at work in Boston, where he was engaged in the cheerful and remunerative business of selling coffins for the American Casket Company.  He was diligent and active and his future promised to be bright, at least so his proud father boasted.  He came home for holidays and vacations and his raiment was anything but funereal, but Mary-’Gusta was not impressed either by the raiment or the personality beneath it.  She treated the persistent Daniel as a boy and a former schoolmate.  When he assumed manly airs she laughed at him and when he invited her to accompany him to the Cattle Show at Ostable she refused and said she was going with Uncle Zoeth.

Dan Higgins was not the only young fellow who found the store of Hamilton and Company an attractive lounging place.  Some of the young gentlemen not permanent residents of South Harniss also appeared to consider it a pleasant place to visit on Summer afternoons.  They came to buy, of course, but they remained to chat.  Mary-’Gusta might have sailed or picknicked a good deal and in the best of company, socially speaking, if she had cared to do so.  She did not so care.

“They don’t want me, Uncle Shad,” she said.  “And I don’t want to go.”

“Course they want you,” declared Shadrach, stoutly.  “If they didn’t want you they wouldn’t ask you, ’tain’t likely.  And I heard that young Keith feller askin’ you to go out sailin’ with him this very afternoon.”

“You didn’t hear his sister ask me, did you?  There, there, Uncle Shad, don’t worry about me.  I’m having a good time; a very much better time than if I went sailing with the Keiths.”

“What’s the matter with the Keiths?  They’re as nice folks as come to South Harniss.”

“Of course they are.”

“Well, then!  And you’re as good as they are, ain’t you?”

“I hope so.  Uncle Shad, why don’t you wear a white flannel suit in hot weather?  Mr. Keith, Sam’s father, wore one at the church garden party the other day.”

The Captain stared at her.  “Why don’t I wear—­what?” he stammered.

“A white flannel suit.  You’re as good as Mr. Keith, aren’t you?”

“I guess I am.  I don’t know why I ain’t.  But what kind of a question’s that?  I’d look like a plain fool tagged out in one of them things:  anyway, I’d feel like one.  I don’t belong in a white flannel suit.  I ain’t no imitation dude.”

“And I don’t belong in Sam Keith’s yacht.  At least Mr. Keith and Edna would feel that I didn’t.  I don’t want to be considered an imitation, either.”