!" she said, with scorn. "An' if
_you_ married _me_," she continued, transfixing the terrified skipper
with a fat forefinger, "I s'pose you'd be wantin' me t' split the fish
you cotched. Oh, you would, would you? Oh, my! But I'll have you t'
know, Skipper Thomas Lovejoy," with a sudden and alarming change of
voice, "that I've the makin's of a better ship's-master than _you_. An'
by the Lord Harry! I'm a better _man_," saying which, she leaped from
her chair with surprising agility, and began to roll up her sleeves,
"an' I'll prove it on your wisage! Come on with you!" she cried,
striking a belligerent attitude, her fists waving in a fashion most
terrifying. "Come on an you dare!"

Skipper Tommy dodged behind the table in great haste and horror.

"Oh, dear!" cried she. "He won't! Oh, my! _There's_ a man for you. An'
I'm but a woman, is I. His poor woman. Oh, _his_ woman! Look you here,
Skipper Thomas Lovejoy, you been stickin' wonderful close alongside o'
me since you come t' Wolf Cove, an' I'm not quite knowin' what tricks
you've in mind. But I'm thinkin' you're like all the men, an' I'll have
you t' know this, that if 'tis marriage with me you're thinkin' on----"

But Skipper Tommy gasped and wildly fled.

"Ha!" she snorted, triumphantly. "I was _thinkin_' I was a better man
than he!"

"'Tis a shame," said I, "t' scare un so!"

Whereat, without uttering a sound, she laughed until the china clinked
and rattled on the shelves, and I thought the pots and pans would come
clattering from their places. And then she strutted the floor for all
the world like a rooster once I saw in the South.

VIII

THE BLIND and The BLIND

Ah, well! at once she set about the cure of my mother. And she went
tripping about the house--and tripping she went, believe me, stout as
she was, as lightsome as one of Skipper Tommy's fairies--with a manner
so large and confident, a glance so compelling, that 'twas beyond us to
doubt her power or slight her commands. First of all she told my mother,
repeating it with patience and persuasive insistence, that she would be
well in six days, and must believe the words true, else she would never
be well, at all. And when my mother had brightened with this new hope,
the woman, muttering words without meaning, hung a curious brown object
about her neck, which she said had come from a holy place and possessed
a strange and powerful virtue for healing. My mother fondled it, with
glistening eyes