aragon."

"What's a paragon?" asked Mr. Chase.

"I don't know. But it's what she is, anyway."

The paragon continued to progress in her studies. Also she continued,
more and more, to take an interest in the housework and the affairs of
her adopted uncles and Isaiah Chase. Little by little changes came
in the life of the family. On one memorable Sunday Captain Shadrach
attended church. It was the first time in a good many years and whether
the congregation or Zoeth or the Captain himself was the more astonished
at the latter's being there is a question. Mary-'Gusta was not greatly
astonished. It was the result of careful planning on her part, planning
which had as its object the relieving of Mr. Hamilton's mind. Zoeth
never missed a Sunday service or a Friday night prayer meeting. And,
being sincerely religious, he was greatly troubled because his friend
and partner took little interest in such things.

Shadrach's aversion to churches dated back to a sermon preached by a
former minister. The subject of that sermon was Jonah and the whale. The
Captain, having been on several whaling voyages in his younger days, had
his own opinion concerning the prophet's famous adventure.

If the minister had been a younger and more tactful man the argument
which followed might have ended pleasantly and the break have been
avoided. But the clergyman was elderly, as set in his ways as the
Captain was in his, and the disagreement was absolute and final.

"The feller is a regular wooden-head," declared Shadrach, hotly. "I was
willin' to be reasonable; I was willin' to give in that this Jonah man
might have been out of his head and, after he was hove overboard and
cast ashore, thought he'd been swallowed by a whale or somethin' or
'nother. I picked up a sailor once who'd drifted around in a boat for a
week and he couldn't remember nothin' of what happened after the first
day or so. If you'd told him he'd been swallowed by a mackerel he
wouldn't have said no. But I've helped kill a good many whales--yes, and
I've helped cut 'em up, too--and I know what they look like inside. No
man, whether his name was Jonah or Jehoshaphat, could have lived three
days in a whale's stomach. How'd he breathe in there, eh? Cal'late the
whale had ventilators and a skylight in his main deck? How'd the whale
live all that time with a man hoppin' 'round inside him? Think I'd live
if I--if I swallowed a live mouse or somethin'? No, sir-ee! Either
that mouse wo