hat, or--or I'll have to go somewheres else.
I realized that when I was in Washin'ton and cruisin' to California and
back. I've either got to take Bos'n and go away for good, or--or--"

She would not help him. She would not speak.

"You see?" he groaned. "You see, Phoebe, what an old fool I am. I can't
ask you to marry me, me fifty-five, and rough from knockin' round the
world, and you, young and educated, and a lady. I ain't fool enough to
ask such a thing as that. And yet, I couldn't stay here and meet you
every day, and by and by see you marry somebody else. By the big dipper,
I couldn't do it! So that's why I can't shake hands with you to-day--nor
any more, except when I say good-by for keeps."

Then she looked up. The color was still bright in her face, and her eyes
were moist, but she was smiling.

"Can't shake hands with me?" she said. "Please, what have you been doing
for the last five minutes?"

Captain Cy dropped her hand as if his own had been struck with
paralysis.

"Good land!" he stammered. "I didn't know I did it; honest truth, I
didn't."

Phoebe's smile was still there, faint, but very sweet.

"Why did you stop?" she queried. "I didn't ask you to."

"Why did I stop? Why, because I--I--I declare I'm ashamed--"

She took his hand and clasped it with both her own.

"I'm not," she said bravely, her eyes brightening as the wonder and
incredulous joy grew in his. "I'm very proud. And very, very happy."

There was to be a big supper at the Cy Whittaker place that night. It
was an impromptu affair, arranged on the spur of the moment by Captain
Cy, who, in spite of the lawyer's protests and anxiety concerning his
health, went serenely up and down the main road, inviting everybody he
met or could think of. The captain's face was as radiant as a spring
sunrise. His smile, as Asaph said, "pretty nigh cut the upper half
of his head off." People who had other engagements, and would, under
ordinary circumstances, have refused the invitation, couldn't say no to
his hearty, "Can't come? Course you'll come! Man alive! I WANT you."

"Invalid, is he?" observed Josiah Dimick, after receiving and accepting
his own invitation. "Well, I wish to thunder I could be took down with
the same kind of disease. I'd be willin' to linger along with it quite
a spell if it pumped me as full of joy as Whit seems to be. Don't give
laughin' gas to keep off pneumonia, do they? No? Well, I'd like to know
the name of his medic