vy hand on his young
shoulders.

"What's your name, dear?" my aunt asked.

"Deolda Costa," said she.

"Oh, you're one-armed Manel's girl. I don't remember seeing you about
lately."

"I been working to New Bedford. My father an' mother both died. I came
up for the funeral. I--don't want to go back to the mills--" Then sudden
fury flamed in her. "I hate the men there!" she cried. "I'd drown before
I'd go back!"

"There, there, dear," my aunt soothed her. "You ain't going back--you're
going to work for Auntie Kingsbury."

That was the way Deolda had. She never gave one any chance for an
illusion about her, for there was handsome Johnny Deutra still hanging
round the gate watching Deolda, and she already held my aunt's heart in
her slender hand.

My aunt went around muttering, "One-armed Manel's girl!" She appealed to
me: "She's got to live somewhere, hasn't she?"

I imagine that my aunt excused herself for deliberately, running into
foul weather by telling herself that Deolda Was her "lot," something the
Lord had sent her to take care of.

"Who was one-armed Manel?" I asked, tagging after my aunt.

"Oh, he was a queer old one-armed Portygee who lived down along," said
my aunt, "clear down along under the sand dunes in a green-painted house
with a garden in front of it with as many colors as Joseph's coat. Those
Costas lived 'most any way." Then my aunt added, over her shoulder:
"They say the old woman was a gypsy and got married to one-armed Manel
jumping over a broomstick. And I wouldn't wonder a mite if 'twas true.
She was a queer looking old hag with black, piercing eyes and a proud
way of walking. The boys are a wild crew. Why, I remember this girl
Deolda, like a little leopard cat with blue-black shadows in her hair
and eyes like saucers, selling berries at the back door!"

My uncle Ariel, Aunt Josephine's brother, came in after a while. As he
took a look at Deolda going out of the room, he said:

"P--hew! What's that?"

"I told you I was sick and had to get a girl to help out--what with
Susie visiting and all," said my aunt, very short.

"Help out? Help out! My lord! _help out!_ What's her name--Beth Sheba?"

Now this wasn't as silly as it sounded. I suppose what Uncle Ariel meant
was that Deolda made him think of Eastern queens and Araby. But my
attention was distracted by the appearance of two wild-looking boys with
a green-blue sea chest which served Deolda as a trunk. I followed it to
her room