“He wouldn’t.  He didn’t want to marry me—­not after I’d took my time at bossin’ him around a while.  And if he had—­well, if he had, and I’d had to do it, I would, I suppose.  I’d do anything for Mrs. Thankful, after what’s she’s done for me.  Miss Emily and me had a talk about self-sacrifice and I see my duty plain.  I told Miss Emily why I did it that night when you all came home from the Fair.  She understood the whole thing.”

The captain burst into a roar of laughter.

“Ho! ho!” he shouted.  “Well, Imogene, I said you beat all my goin’ to sea, and you do—­you sartin do.  Now, I’d like to be on hand and see how Hannah takes it.  If I know her, now that that engagement ain’t hangin’ over her, she’ll even up with her brother for all she’s had to put up with.  Ho! ho!  Poor old Kenelm’s in for a warm Christmas.”

And yet Kenelm’s Christmas was not so “warm” after all.  He told Hannah of his broken engagement, wasting no words—­which, for him, was very remarkable—­and expressing no regret whatever.  Hannah listened, at first with joy, and then, when Imogene’s “love” was conveyed to her, with growing anger.

“The idea!” she cried.  “And you bring me over a message like that.  From her—­from an Orphans’ Home inmate to your own sister!  And you let her walk over you, chuck you out as if you was a wornout doormat she’d wiped her boots on, and never said a word.  Well, I’ll say it for you.  I’ll tell her what I think of her.  And she was cal’latin’ to sue you for breaches of promise, was she?  Humph!  Two can play at that game.  I don’t know’s I shan’t have you sue her.”

“I don’t want to.  I told you this mornin’ I didn’t care nothin’ about marryin’ her.  And you didn’t want me to yourself.  Now that it’s all over you ought to be happy, I should think.  I don’t see what you’re growlin’ about.”

“No, I suppose you don’t.  You—­you,” with withering contempt, “you haven’t got the self-respect of—­of a woodtick.  I’m—­I declare I’m perfectly prospected with shame at havin’ such a brother in my family.  And after cruisin’ around with her and takin’ her to the Cattle Show—­”

“You went to the Cattle Show yourself.”

“I don’t care if I did.  Now you march yourself upstairs and change your clothes.”

“Aw, now, Hannah.  These clothes are good enough.”

“Good enough!  For Christmas Day!  I should think you’d be ashamed.  Oh, you make me so provoked!  If folks knew what I know about you—­”

Kenelm interrupted, a most unusual thing for him.

“S’posin’ they knew what I know about you,” he observed.

“What?  What do you mean by that?  What have I done to be ashamed of?”

“I don’t know.  I don’t know what you did.  I don’t even know where you went.  But when a person crawls down a ladder in the middle of the night and goes off somewhere with—­with somebody else and don’t get home until ‘most mornin’, then—­well, then I cal’late folks might be interested if they knew, that’s all.”