nd turned away, swaying
her hips and tossing her head as she disappeared into her father's
cottage. When Tunis looked around for his cousin, he found that that
facile young man, taking advantage of the girl's intervention, had
slipped away.

* * * * *

A winter hurricane had pounced upon the Cape and torn at it with
teeth and claws, as though seeking to dismember it--to wrench the
forty-mile curved claw of the Cape from the remainder of Barnstable
County.

The driven snow masked everything--earth, houses, trees, and the
shivering bushes; it clung to these objects, iced upon them like
frosting. No craft ventured out of Big Wreck Cove, least of all the
_Seamew_, although she had a cargo in her hold and a complete and
satisfied crew in her forecastle.

Tunis Latham was speaking of the latter fact to Aunt Lucretia in the
warm and homelike kitchen of Latham's Folly.

"Zeb is a good fellow. He has got together a bunch of hands that
aren't afraid of ghosts or bogies. You couldn't make those Portygees
or some of the other hands we had see the ridiculousness of their
fear of the _Seamew_--bless her! But with this bunch Zeb has got
together I wouldn't fear to sail around the Horn."

His aunt looked startled at the suggestion and shook her head.

"I know you wouldn't want I should go for such a long voyage, Aunt
Lucretia," he replied. "And I don't want to myself. But I couldn't
be content here if I didn't see the prospect bright before me of
getting Ida--I mean, of getting Sheila."

His aunt looked at him again not unkindly, but said not a word.

"I've told you all about it, Aunt Lucretia," the skipper of the
_Seamew_ pursued. "Everything. If Sheila did wrong to come down here
as she did, I did a greater wrong in encouraging her to come and in
tempting her with the chance of escaping from the mess she was in.
And she's paid--we've both paid--for our folly.

"As for folks talking, if that Bostwick girl wants to keep her job
with Hoskin & Marl's she'll keep her mouth shut about Sheila. She
understands that. And Hoskin & Marl--everybody, in fact that was
connected with that awful thing that happened to Sheila--have done
all in their power to make amends."

For the first time his aunt's lips opened.

"The poor child!" she said.

"I want more than your sympathy for Sheila, auntie," he urged
earnestly. "I want your approval of what Sheila and I mean to
do--in time. Of course, I must be be