orry such a critter as that by talkin' to him about
what he owes? Might as well try to worry a codfish by leanin' over the
rail of the boat and hollerin' to it that it's drownin'."

Mary laughed again. "I'm afraid you may be right, Uncle Shad," she said,
"but I shan't give up hope. My chance may come some day, if I wait and
watch for it."

It came unexpectedly and in a rather odd manner. One raw, windy March
afternoon she was very much surprised to see Sam Keith walk into the
store. Sam, since his graduation from college, was, as he expressed it,
"moaning on the bar" in Boston--that is to say, he was attending the
Harvard Law School with the hope, on his parents' part, that he might
ultimately become a lawyer.

"Why, Sam!" exclaimed Mary. "Is this you?"

Sam grinned cheerfully. "'Tis I," he declared. "I am here. That is
to say, the handsome youth whose footfalls you hear approaching upon
horseback is none other than our hero. Mary, you are, as usual, a sight
to be thankful for. How do you do?"

Mary admitted that she was in good health and then demanded to know what
he was doing down on the Cape at that time of the year. He sat down in
a chair by the stove and propped his feet against the hearth before
replying.

"Why! Haven't you guessed?" he asked, in mock amazement. "Dear me! I'm
surprised. I should have thought the weather would have suggested my
errand. Hear that zephyr; doesn't it suggest bathing suits and outing
flannels and mosquitoes and hammock flirtations? Eh?"

The zephyr was a sixty-mile-an-hour March gale. Sam replied to his own
question.

"Answer," he said, "it does not. Right, my child; go up head. But,
honest Injun, I am down here on summer business. That Mr. Raymond, Dad's
friend, who was visiting us this summer is crazy about the Cape. He
has decided to build a summer home here at South Harniss, and the first
requisite being land to build it on he has asked Dad to buy the strip
between our own property and the North Inlet, always provided it can be
bought. Dad asked me to come down here and see about it, so here I am."

Mary considered. "Oh, yes," she said, after a moment, "I know the land
you mean. Who owns it?"

"That's what I didn't know," said Sam. "But I do know now. I asked the
first person I met after I got off the train and oddly enough he turned
out to be the owner himself. It was old Clifford--Isaiah, Elisha,
Hosea--Jeremiah, that's it. I knew it was one of the prophets."

"So