n private to
her husband; "but Sarah Honey didn't neglect teaching her how to
keep any man's home neat and proper."

"Sh!" admonished Cap'n Ira. "Don't put no such ideas in the gal's
head."

"What ideas?" the old woman asked wonderingly.

His eyes twinkled and he rewarded himself with a generous pinch of
snuff before repeating his bon mot:

"If you don't tell her she'll make some man a good wife, maybe she
won't never know it! Looker out, Prudence! _A-choon!_"

CHAPTER XIII

SOME YOUNG MEN APPEAR

A house plant brought out into the May sunshine and air expands
almost immediately under the rejuvenating influences of improved
conditions. Its leaves uncurl; its buds develop; it turns at once
and gratefully to the business of growing which has been restricted
during its incarceration indoors.

So with Sheila Macklin--she who now proclaimed herself Ida May
Bostwick and who was gladly welcomed as such by the old people at
the Ball homestead on Wreckers' Head. After the girl's experiences
of more than three years since leaving her home town, the
surroundings of the house on the headland seemed an estate in
paradise.

As for the work which fell to her share, she enjoyed it. She felt
that she could not do too much for the old people to repay them for
this refuge they had given her. That Cap'n Ira and Prudence had no
idea of the terrible predicament in which she had been placed
previous to her coming made no difference to the girl's feeling of
gratitude toward them. She had been serving a sentence in purgatory,
and Tunis Latham's bold plan had opened the door of heaven to her.

The timidity which had so marked her voice and manner when Tunis had
first met her soon wore away. With Cap'n Ira and Prudence she was
never shy, and when the captain of the _Seamew_ came back again he
found such a different girl at the old house on Wreckers' Head that
he could scarcely believe she was the Sheila Macklin who had told
him her history on the bench on Boston Common.

"I swan, Tunis," hoarsely announced Cap'n Ira, "you done a deed that
deserves a monument equal to that over there to Plymouth. Them
Pilgrim fathers--to say nothing of the mothers--never done no more
beneficial thing than you did in bringing Ida May down here to stay
along o' Prudence and me. And I cal'late Prue and me are more
thankful to you than the red Indians was to the Pilgrims for coming
ashore in Plymouth County and so puttin' the noses of Provincet