"It's a mercy there are always clams," said Mrs. Porter, and Jerry Holt's sea-blue eyes twinkled at her.
The visitor's plans for independence suddenly weakened. That cottage clinging to the rocks was undermining it more swiftly the further the carriage advanced.
"I believe, Mr. Holt, you'd better leave me at Miss Barry's," she said suddenly.
He shook his head. "Not a bit o' use," he replied. "She won't even accawmodate ye, let alone takin' a boarder. Belinda ain't stuck up. Her worst enemy can't say it changed her a mite to have a brother that eats off gold plates. She was always jest that way."
"What way?"
"Oh, high-headed ye might call it. I dunno exactly what; but Belinda allers claimed to steer; and now she lives to Portland winters in any hotel she's a mind to, she don't act a mite different from what she allers did, though lots o' folks claim she does. 'T ain't no use, though, Mis' Porter, your goin' there. I'd—I'd kind o' hate to have Belinda refuse ye."
The speaker cast a kindly glance at his passenger, who smiled back at him appreciatively.
"Thank you, but I do know Miss Barry. I met her in Chicago, and I'll just stop for a call, and she'll advise me where to go; for I tell you I'm going to stay, Mr. Holt, even if you have to let me sleep in your carryall. Why haven't you a nice wife, now, who would take me in?"
"That's jest why. 'Cause that's the specialty o' wives, and I didn't want to be took in."
Mrs. Porter laughed, and the carryall drew up beside Miss Barry's sunlit piazza. She opened her purse. "How much, Mr. Holt?"