"

So Mamie and I began to walk along the path, and Jack went up
toward the barn.

"It was sweet of you to come, captain," Miss Mamie began, "for I
have always wanted to see you."

"Yes," I said, expecting something more.

"You see, I always knew them both," she went on. "They used to
take me out in a dory to catch codfish when I was a little girl,
and I liked them both," she added thoughtfully. "Jack doesn't
care to talk about his brother now. That's natural. But you won't
mind telling me how it happened, will you? I should so much like
to know."

Well, I told her about the voyage and what happened that night
when we fell in with a gale of wind, and that it hadn't been
anybody's fault, for I wasn't going to admit that it was my old
captain's, if it was. But I didn't tell her anything about what
happened afterwards. As she didn't speak, I just went on talking
about the two brothers, and how like they had been, and how when
poor Jim was drowned and Jack was left, I took Jack for him. I
told her that none of us had ever been sure which was which.

"I wasn't always sure myself," she said, "unless they were
together. Leastways, not for a day or two after they came home
from sea. And now it seems to me that Jack is more like poor Jim,
as I remember him, than he ever was, for Jim was always more
quiet, as if he were thinking."

I told her I thought so, too. We passed the gate and went into
the next field, walking side by side. Then she turned her head to
look for Jack, but he wasn't in sight. I sha'n't forget what she
said next.

"Are you sure now?" she asked.

I stood stock-still, and she went on a step, and then turned and
looked at me. We must have looked at each other while you could
count five or six.

"I know it's silly," she went on, "it's silly, and it's awful,
too, and I have got no right to think it, but sometimes I can't
help it. You see it was always Jack I meant to marry."

"Yes," I said stupidly, "I suppose so."

She waited a minute, and began walking on slowly before she went
on again.

"I am talking to you as if you were an old friend, captain, and I
have only known you five minutes. It was Jack I meant to marry,
but now he is so like the other one."

When a woman gets a wrong idea into her head, there is only one
way to make her tired of it, and that is to agree with her.
That's what I did, and she went on talking the same way for a
little while, and I kept on agreeing and agreeing until