pping the knob of his cane.

"Well, now," said the old woman, greatly interested in her own idea,
and a little proud of it, "suppose that neighbor had a little girl
who heard all these things Sarah Bostwick might have said. And if
that child's brain wasn't just right--if she was a little
weak-minded, poor thing--what's more reasonable than that she
treasured it all up in her mind and after years, in one of her
spells of weak-mindedness, she got the idea _she_ was Ida May
Bostwick, and determined to come here and visit us!"

"I swan, Prudence!" exclaimed Cap'n Ira. "It's like a story-book--a
reg'lar novel."

"Well, it might be," said his wife, smiling quite proudly.

"Only after all, that gal didn't seem so very weak-minded," muttered
Cap'n Ira. "She seemed more mean and ugly than weak."

Sheila had thought somewhat along this line herself. At least, she
knew how weak the real Ida May's story must sound to most people in
the neighborhood, unless the claimant had actual proof of birth and
name to bolster her attempt to win the Balls. There was but a
tenuous thread connecting Ida May with Big Wreck Cove, or any other
part of Cape Cod. The Bostwicks--the girl's immediate family, at
least--were dead.

These facts, already gathered by Sheila from Aunt Prudence's
conversation with the neighboring women, were the foundation on
which she had built her desperate hope of keeping up the deception
and thwarting the other girl, no matter how bitterly the latter
might press her claim.

Nor was she, Sheila felt, depriving Ida May of anything which the
latter, if she obtained it, would actually prize. The shallow girl
was not the sort of person to appreciate the kindness of the two old
people or give them any comfort and sympathy in return. Why, both
Cap'n Ira and Prudence already shrank from the new claimant!

This fact, however, did not cause Sheila, the imposter, to lose
sight of the point that Cap'n Ira and his wife could both be very
stern in attitude and speech toward the evildoer. They made no
compromises with evil.

Even the old man, philosophical as he was and wont to look upon most
human frailities with a lenient if not a humorous eye, would not
excuse actual crime. And something very like a crime had been
committed.

The day passed without any reappearance of Ida May upon Wreckers'
Head, but just after nightfall and while the supper dishes were
being cleared away, Zebedee Pauling knocked at the kitchen door. All