self ashore, beaching the boat,
just as Cap'n Amazon came down from the store with a second basket of
supplies.

"Wish I was goin' with ye," he said heartily. "Would, too, if I could
shut up shop. But I promised Abe I'd stay by the ship till he come
home again."

Louise introduced her uncle to Mr. Bane; but during the bustle of
getting into the skiff and pushing off she overlooked the fact that
Lawford and the actor were not introduced.

"Bring us home a mess of tautog," Cap'n Amazon shouted. "I sartainly
do fancy blackfish when they're cooked right. Bile 'em, an' serve with
an egg sauce, is my way o' puttin' 'em on the table."

"That was Cap'n Abe's way, too," muttered Betty.

The cloud on Lawford Tapp's countenance did not lift immediately as he
sculled them out to the anchored sloop. Louise saw quickly that his
ill humor was for Bane.

"I must keep this young man at a distance," she thought, as she waved
her hand to Uncle Amazon and Mr. Bane. "He takes too much for granted,
I fear. Perhaps, after all, I should have excused myself from this
adventure."

She eyed Lawford covertly as, with swelling muscles and lithe, swinging
body, he drove his sculling oar. "But he does look more 'to the manner
born'--much more the man, in fact--than that actor!"

Lawford could not for long forget his duty as host, and he was as
cheerful and obliging as usual by the time the three had scrambled
aboard the _Merry Andrew_.

Immediately Betty Gallup cast aside her skirt and stood forth
untrammeled in the overalls. "Gimme my way and I'd wear 'em doin'
housework and makin' my garding," she declared. "Land sakes! I allus
did despise women's fooleries."

Louise laughed blithely.

"Why, Betty," she said, "lots of city women who do their own housework
don 'knickers' or gymnasium suits to work in. No excuse is needed."

"Humph!" commented the old woman. "I had no idee city women had so
much sense. The ones I see down here on the Cape don't show it."

The morning breeze was light but steady. The _Merry Andrew_ was a
sweetly sailing boat and Lawford handled her to the open admiration of
Betty Gallup. The old woman's comment would have put suspicion in
Louise's mind had the girl not been utterly blind to the actual
identity of the sloop's owner.

"Humph! you're the only furiner, Lawford Tapp, I ever see who could
sail a smack proper. But you got Cape blood in you--that's what 'tis."

"Thank you, Betty," he retur