“Oh, I’m sorry. I suppose the new one’s better.”
“Well, she’s just as good, anyway.”
“But if she’s not better, I don’t see why you let the Annie go.”
“’Taint always in our power to hold on to things when we’d like to,” responded Hiram equably.
Mrs. Bruce’s eyes shone with interest behind her bi-focals. “Poor man!” she thought. “How improvident these ignorant people are! Probably went into debt, and had to lose his boat, and calculated on doing enough business this summer to pay for the new one.”
“And what,” she asked, with an air of gracious patronage, “will you call this one? Gentle Annie second, of course.”
He shook his head, his sea-blue eyes fixed intrepidly on the object of his affections, who regarded him threateningly.
“Can’t be any Annie second,” he returned quietly.
“Now I think you make a great mistake, Captain Salter,” said Mrs. Bruce, with vigor. “For your own welfare I feel you ought to keep that name. The summer people have been attached to the Gentle Annie so long, and had such confidence in her.”