The enclosure was a long, legal-looking document.  Thankful unfolded it, read a few lines and then stopped reading.

“Why—­why—­” she stammered.

“What is it, Auntie?” pleaded Emily.

“It—­I can’t make out.  I must be crazy, or—­or somebody is.  It looks like—­Read it, Emily; read it out loud.”

CHAPTER XVII

Captain Obed Bangs rose at his usual hour that Christmas morning, and the hour was an early one.  When he looked from his bedroom window the clouds were breaking and a glance at his barometer, hung on the wall just beside that window, showed the glass to be rising and confirmed the promise of a fair day.  He dressed and came downstairs.  Hannah Parker came down soon afterward.  The captain wished her a merry Christmas.

Miss Parker shook her head; she seemed to be in a pessimistic mood.

“I’m much obliged to you, Cap’n Bangs,” she said, “and I’m sure I wish you the same.  But I don’t know; don’t seem as if I was liable to have many more merry Christmases in this life.  No, merry Christmases ain’t for me.  I’m a second fiddle nowadays and I cal’late that’s what I’m foreordinated to be from now on.”

The captain didn’t understand.

“Second fiddle,” he repeated.  “What have you got to do with fiddlin’, for goodness’ sakes?”

“Nothin’, of course.  I don’t mean a real fiddle.  I mean I shan’t never be my own mistress any more.  I’ve been layin’ awake thinkin’ about it and shiverin’, ’twas so damp and chilly up in my room.  There’s a loose shingle right over a knot hole that’s abreast a crack in my bedroom wall, and it lets in the dampness like a sieve.  I’ve asked Kenelm to fix it more times; but no, all he cares to do is look out for himself and that inmate.  If she had a loose shingle he’d fix it quick enough.  All I could do this mornin’ was lay to bed there and shiver and pull up the quilt and think and think.  It kept comin’ over me more and more.”

“The quilt, you mean?  That’s what you wanted it to do, wasn’t it?”

“Not the quilt.  The thought of the lonesome old age that’s comin’ to me when Kenelm’s married.  I’ve had him to look after for so long.  I’ve been my own boss, as they say.”

She might have added, “And Kenelm’s, too,” but Captain Obed added it for her, in his mind.  He laughed.

“That’s all right, Hannah,” he observed, by way of consolation.  “Kenelm ain’t married yet.  When he is you can help his wife look out for him.  Either that or get married.  Why don’t you get married, Hannah?”

“Humph!  Don’t be silly, Obed Bangs.”

“That ain’t silliness, that’s sense.  All you need to do is just h’ist the signal, ‘Consort wanted,’ and you’d have one alongside in no time.  There’s Caleb Hammond, for instance; he’s a widower and—­eh! look out!”

Miss Parker had dropped the plate she was just putting down upon the table.  Fortunately it fell only a few inches and did not break.