“Oh, nothin’, I guess.  I thought I caught a sight of somebody peekin’ around the back of that henhouse.  If ’twas somebody he dodged back so quick I couldn’t be sure.  Humph!  I guess I was mistaken, or ’twas just one of Solon Taylor’s young ones.  Solon’s a sort of—­sort of stevedore at the Colfax place.  Lives there and takes care of it while the owners are away.  No-o; no, I don’t see nobody now.”

Thankful was silent during the homeward walk.  When she and Miss Howes were alone in their room, she said: 

“Emily, are you real set on gettin’ back to South Middleboro tonight?”

“No, Auntie.  Why?”

“Well, if you ain’t I think I’d like to stay over another day.  I’ve got an idea in my head and, such a thing bein’ kind of unusual, I’d like to keep company with it for a spell.  I’ll tell you about it by and by; probably ’twon’t come to anything, anyway.”

“But do you think we ought to stay here, as Miss Parker’s guests?  Wouldn’t it be—­”

“Of course it would.  We’ll go over to that hotel, the one we started for in the first place.  Judgin’ from what I hear of that tavern it’ll be wuth experiencin’; and—­and somethin’ may come of that, too.”

She would not explain further, and Emily, knowing her well, did not press the point.

Hannah Parker protested volubly when her “company” declared its intention of going to the East Wellmouth Hotel.

“Of course you shan’t do no such thing,” she declared.  “The idea!  It’s no trouble at all to have you, and that hotel really ain’t fit for such folks as you to stay at.  Mrs. Bacon, from Boston, stayed there one night in November and she pretty nigh famished with the cold, to say nothin’ of havin’ to eat huckleberry preserves for supper two nights runnin’.  Course they had plenty of other things in the closet, but they’d opened a jar of huckleberries, so they had to be et up afore they spiled.  That’s the way they run that hotel.  And Mrs. Bacon is eastern Massachusetts delegate from the State Grange.  She’s Grand Excited Matron.  Just think of treatin’ her that way!  Well, where’ve you been all the forenoon?”

The question was addressed to her brother, who entered the house by the side door at that moment.  Kenelm seemed a trifle confused.

“I—­I been lookin’ for that umbrella, Hannah,” he explained.  “I knew I must have left it somewheres ’cause—­’cause, you see I—­I took it out with me last night and—­and—­”

“And come home without it.  It wouldn’t take a King Solomon to know that.  Did you find it?”

Kenelm’s embarrassment appeared to increase.

“Well,” he stammered, “I ain’t exactly found it—­but—­”

“But what?”

“I—­I’m cal’latin’ to find it, Hannah.”

“Yes, I know.  You’re cal’latin’ to get to Heaven some time or other, I s’pose, but if the path is as narrow and crooked as they say ’tis I should be scared if I was you.  You’ll find a way to lose it, if there is one.  Oh, dear me!” with a sudden change to a tone almost pleading.  “Be you goin’ to smoke again?”