d him for
different reasons. In her soul she had always regarded him as "real
cunning," and had even, when she passed to bring up the dish of apples
from the cellar, or a mug of cider, longed to touch the queer lock that
would straggle down from his sparsely covered poll in absurd travesty of
a baby's tended curl.

Probably no one, and certainly not the captain himself, knew exactly how
Miss Letty regarded him. Miss Letty had been forty-seven years old the
last November that ever was, as she had just told him, in talking over
her forthcoming departure from the house where she had lived all the
forty-seven years; and he knew, she added, just how she felt about the
place and all that was in it. The cap'n nodded gravely, thinking, if it
paid to say so, that he knew how the town looked upon her. She was good
as gold, the neighbors said, and at that moment she especially looked
it, in a still, serious way. She was a wholesome woman, with nothing
showy to commend her and little to remark except the extreme earnestness
of her upward glance. From her unconscious humility she seemed to be
always gazing up at people, even when their eyes were on a level with
hers. It might have indicated a habit of mind.

It was only to-night that the rumor of her going had reached Cap'n
Oliver, and he had come in to talk it over. Miss Letty's heart quieted
as she saw him take her father's capacious armchair and settle on the
applique cushion, so sacred to him that whenever the cat stole a nap out
of it, stray hairs had to be brushed scrupulously off, lest Cap'n Oliver
should appear for an evening's gossip.

Miss Letty's house was at the end of a narrow way, bordered by
cinnamon-roses and stragglers from old gardens; and some of the
neighbors said it would make them as nervous as a witch to be so far
from the road. But it did not make Miss Letty nervous. For some reason,
perhaps because of long usage, it helped her feel secure.

"Well," she was saying mildly to Cap'n Oliver, "I'm gettin' along in
years. What's the use of denyin' it? That's what Ellery said in his
letter. 'You're 'most fifty, Aunt Letty,' says he. 'Time to quit livin'
alone an' come out here an' let us take care o' you.'"

Cap'n Oliver scowled at the fire as if he found the freshly burning
sticks too strong to be smashed, and resented it.

"Well," said he, "I'm fifty-four. Let 'em come to me."

"Now, be you really?" asked Miss Letty, in a pretty surprise, though she
knew a