“It is?” she asked.  “Important—­how?  What do you mean?”

Her lodger looked as if he had said more than he intended.  Also as if he did not know what to say next.  But Cabot saved him the trouble.

“I wonder if I might attend this—­er—­function?” he suggested.  “It is in the nature of a public affair, isn’t it?  And,” with a twinkle of the eye, “it sounds as if it might be interesting.”

Galusha and Miss Phipps regarded him gravely.  Both seemed a little troubled.  It was Martha who answered.

“There isn’t any real reason why you shouldn’t go, if you want to, Mr. Cabot,” she said.  “There is only one thing—­only one reason why I didn’t say yes right away.  I guess Mr. Bangs knows that reason and feels the same as I do about it.  Don’t you, Mr. Bangs?”

Galusha nodded.

“You see,” went on Miss Phipps, “Cap’n Hallett is kind of—­well, queer in some ways, but he has been, in his day, a good deal of a man.  And his daughter is a lovely girl and I think the world of her.  I wouldn’t want to hurt their feelings.  If they should see you laugh—­well, you understand—­”

Cousin Gussie nodded.

“Don’t say any more, Miss Phipps,” he replied.  “It is quite all right.  I’ll stay in your home here and be perfectly happy.”

“But you didn’t wait for me to finish.  I was goin’ to say that if you should laugh you must manage not to let any one hear you; especially Cap’n Jeth.  Lulie has lots of common sense; she wouldn’t mind except for the effect on her father, and she realizes how funny it is.  But her father doesn’t and—­and he is pretty close to the breakin’ point sometimes.  So save up your laughs until we get back, please.”

“You seem to take it for granted that I shall feel like laughing.  Perhaps I sha’n’t.  I only suggested my attending this affair because I thought it would be a novelty to me.”

“Yes, yes, of course.  Well, it will be a novelty, I guess likely, and a pretty novel novelty, too.  But there’s one thing more, Mr. Cabot, that I want you to promise me.  Don’t you dare take that crowd at that seance as a fair sample of Wellmouth folks, because they’re not.”

“Why, Miss Phipps—­”

“Because they’re not.  Every town and every neighborhood, city or country, has its freaks and every freak within five miles will be over in that lighthouse parlor to-night.  Just take ’em for freaks, that’s all, but don’t take ’em for samples of our people down here.”  She paused, and then added, with an apologetic laugh, “I guess you think I am pretty peppery on the subject.  Well, I get that way at times, particularly just after the summer is over and the city crowd has been here lookin’ for ‘characters.’  If you could see some of the specimens who come over from the hotel, see the way they dress and act and speak!  ‘Oh,’ one creature said to me; ‘oh, Miss Phipps,’ she gushed, ‘I am just dyin’ to meet some of your dear, funny,