isn't,
it's mine. I may have sold that stock or any other, or the house or the
barn or the cat, as far as that goes, but if I have or haven't it is
my affair. And I think you'd better understand that before we talk any
more."

She turned and walked on again. Captain Jethro's eyes flashed. It had
been some time since any one had addressed him in that manner. However,
women were women and business was business, and the captain was just
then too intent upon the latter to permit the whims of the former to
interfere. He swallowed his temper and strode after his neighbor.

"Martha," he said, complainingly, "I don't see as you've got any call to
talk to me that way. I've been a pretty good friend to you, seems to me,
and I was your father's friend, his chum, as you might say. Seems as if
I had--well, a right to be interested in--in what you do."

Martha paused. After all, there was truth in what he said. He had been
her father's close friend, and, no doubt, he meant to be hers. And he
was Lulie's father, and not well, not quite his old self mentally or
physically. Perhaps she should make allowances.

"Well, all right, Cap'n Jeth," she said. "It wasn't what you said so
much as it was how you said it. Now will you tell me why you're so
dreadfully anxious to know how I got that five thousand dollars I
deposited over to the bank yesterday?"

The light keeper pulled at his beard; the latter was so thick as to
make a handful, even for one of his hands. "Well," he said, somewhat
apologetically, "you see, Martha, it's like this: IF you sold them
Development shares of yours--and I swan I can't think of anything else
you own that would sell for just that money--IF you sold 'em, I say, I'd
like to know how you done it. I've got four hundred shares of that stock
I'd like to sell fust-rate--fust-rate I would."

She had not entirely forgiven him for his intrusion in her affairs and
his manner of the moment before. She could not resist giving him a dig.

"Cap'n Jeth," she said, "I don't see why you need to worry. I've heard
you say a good many times that you had promises from--well, from the
spirits that you were goin' to sell your Development stock and at
a profit. All you had to do, you said, was wait. Now, you see, _I_
couldn't wait."

The captain nodded in satisfaction. "So 'TWAS the Development you sold,"
he growled. "I figgered out it couldn't be nothin' else."

Martha scarcely knew whether to frown or laugh. Some of her pity