“See here, Jethro,” she said; “you’re takin’ a good many things for granted, aren’t you?”

“No, I don’t cal’late I am.  I know you’ve sold somethin’ and got five thousand dollars for it.  I see you deposit the five thousand, myself, and Ed Thacher told me, after I pumped it out of him, that you said you’d sold somethin’ you owned and got a good price when you didn’t know as you’d ever get a cent.  Now, you ain’t sold your place because I’d know if you had, and it ain’t worth five thousand, anyway.  The other stocks and bonds you’ve got ain’t—­”

But Martha interrupted.

“Jethro,” she said, sharply, “I just said that you were takin’ a good many things for granted.  You are.  One of ’em is that you can talk to me as if I was Zach Bloomer or a fo’masthand on your old schooner.  I’m neither of those and I don’t care to be talked to in that way.  Another is that what I chose to do with my property is your business.  It isn’t, it’s mine.  I may have sold that stock or any other, or the house or the barn or the cat, as far as that goes, but if I have or haven’t it is my affair.  And I think you’d better understand that before we talk any more.”

She turned and walked on again.  Captain Jethro’s eyes flashed.  It had been some time since any one had addressed him in that manner.  However, women were women and business was business, and the captain was just then too intent upon the latter to permit the whims of the former to interfere.  He swallowed his temper and strode after his neighbor.

“Martha,” he said, complainingly, “I don’t see as you’ve got any call to talk to me that way.  I’ve been a pretty good friend to you, seems to me, and I was your father’s friend, his chum, as you might say.  Seems as if I had—­well, a right to be interested in—­ in what you do.”

Martha paused.  After all, there was truth in what he said.  He had been her father’s close friend, and, no doubt, he meant to be hers.  And he was Lulie’s father, and not well, not quite his old self mentally or physically.  Perhaps she should make allowances.

“Well, all right, Cap’n Jeth,” she said.  “It wasn’t what you said so much as it was how you said it.  Now will you tell me why you’re so dreadfully anxious to know how I got that five thousand dollars I deposited over to the bank yesterday?”

The light keeper pulled at his beard; the latter was so thick as to make a handful, even for one of his hands.  “Well,” he said, somewhat apologetically, “you see, Martha, it’s like this:  If you sold them Development shares of yours—­and I swan I can’t think of anything else you own that would sell for just that money—­if you sold ’em, I say, I’d like to know how you done it.  I’ve got four hundred shares of that stock I’d like to sell fust-rate—­fust-rate I would.”

She had not entirely forgiven him for his intrusion in her affairs and his manner of the moment before.  She could not resist giving him a dig.