“Naturally.  Well, I have thought of that, too, and here is suggestion number three:  I have a cousin—­a cousin of my first wife’s—­who lives on Pinckney Street, which is not far from the Misses Cabot’s school.  This cousin—­Mrs. Wyeth is her name—­is a widow and she hasn’t too much money.  She doesn’t keep a boarding house exactly, but she has been known to take a few of what she calls ‘paying guests.’  She’s very Bostonian and very particular concerning the references and family connections of those guests, but I think I could manage that.  If your niece were placed in her care she would have a real home and meet only the sort of people you would wish her to meet.”

He might have added that Mrs. Wyeth, being under many obligations, pecuniary and otherwise, to her wealthy Chicago relative, would need only a hint from him to give Mary-’Gusta the care and attention of a parent, a very particular, Boston first-family parent.  But, unlike his present wife, he was not in the habit of referring to his charities, so he kept this information to himself.

Zoeth sighed.  “I declare,” he said, “you’re mighty kind in all this, Mr. Keith.  I know that you’re sartin this goin’ away to school would do Mary-’Gusta a sight of good.  But—­but I swan I—­I can’t hardly bear to think of our lettin’ her go away from us.”

“I don’t wonder at that.  Just think it over and we’ll have another talk later.”

CHAPTER X

Mr. Keith and the Captain had that later talk—­several talks, in fact—­and a week after their first one Captain Shadrach suddenly announced that he was cal’latin’ to run up to Boston just for a day on business and that Mary-’Gusta had better go along with him for company.  Zoeth could tend store and get along all right until they returned.  The girl was not so certain of the getting along all right, but Mr. Hamilton as well as the Captain insisted, so she consented at last.  The Boston trip was not exactly a novelty to her—­she had visited the city a number of times during the past few years—­but a holiday with Uncle Shad was always good fun.

They took the early morning train and reached Boston about ten o’clock.  Shadrach’s business in the city seemed to be of a rather vague nature this time.  They called at the offices of two or three of his old friends—­ship-chandlers and marine outfitters on Commercial Street and Atlantic Avenue—­and then the Captain, looking at his watch, announced that it was pretty nigh noontime and he cal’lated they had better be cruisin’ up towards Pinckney Street.  “Got an errand up in that latitude,” he added.

Pinckney Street was on the hill in the rear of the Common and the State House and was narrow and crooked and old-fashioned.

“What in the world are we doing up here?” queried Mary-’Gusta.  “There aren’t any wholesale houses here, I’m sure.  Haven’t you made a mistake, Uncle Shad?” Shadrach, who had been consulting a page of his pocket memorandum book, replied that he cal’lated he’d got his bearin’s, and, to the girl’s astonishment, stopped before a brick dwelling with a colonial doorway and a white stone step which actually shone from scrubbing, and rang the bell.