“Right you are!” Captain Obed slapped his knee.  “And Kenelm was out somewheres that night afore he and I came over here.  He found his umbrella and he brought it home whole a week or so later.  But it wa’n’t whole all that time, because Seth Ellis told me Kenelm brought an umbrella in for him to fix.  All turned inside out it was.  Eh?  Yes, sir!  We’re gettin’ nigher port all the time.  Kenelm came by this house that night, because ’twas him that saw your light in the window.  I’ll bet you he smashed his new umbrella on the way down from the club and crawled in here out of the wet to fix it.  He couldn’t fix it, so he left it here and came back after it the next day.  And ’twas then he dropped this mitten.”

Emily offered a suggestion.

“You said you saw someone hiding behind the henhouse that next morning, Captain,” she said.

“So I did.  And I thought ’twas one of Solon Taylor’s boys.  I’ll bet ’twas Kenelm; he’d sneaked over to get the umbrella.  It was him that said, ‘Oh, Lord’ that night; I’ll bet high on it.  When he thought of what Hannah’d say to his smashin’ the umbrella she gave him it’s a wonder he didn’t say more than that.  That’s the answer—­the whole answer—­and I’ll prove it next time I see Kenelm.”

Which, by the way, he did.

Later in the afternoon John and Emily walked up to the village together.  They asked Thankful and Captain Obed to accompany them, but the invitation was declined.  However, as John had suddenly remembered that he had left his office door unlocked, he felt that he should go and Emily went with him.

“I presume likely,” observed the captain, as he looked after them, “that I ought to feel conscience-struck for not sayin’ yes when they asked me to come along, but somehow I don’t.  I have a sneakin’ feelin’ that they’ll get on first-rate without our company, Thankful.”

Thankful was silent.  She was sitting by the window.  The pair were alone together in the living-room now.  Imogene and Jedediah and Georgie were in the kitchen making molasses candy.

“Well,” observed Captain Obed, “that’s so, ain’t it?  Don’t you agree with me?”

Still there was no answer and, turning, the captain was surprised to see his companion wiping her eyes with her handkerchief.

“For thunder sakes!” he exclaimed, in dismay.  “What’s happened now?  Are you cryin’?”

Thankful tried to smile.  “No,” she said.  “I’m not cryin’.  At least, I hadn’t ought to cry.  I ought to be awful happy and I am.  Seein’ those two go off together that way made me think that pretty soon they’d be goin’ away for good.  And I—­I was a little lonesome, I guess.”

“Sho! sho!  You mustn’t be lonesome.  They won’t get married yet awhile, I cal’late.”

“No.  I suppose not.  But Emily will have to go next week back to her school, and she’ll take Georgie with her.  I’ll miss ’em both terribly.”

“Yes, so you will.  But you’ve got your brother now.  He’ll be some company.”