"When Arlo Weeks comes home from business, tell him I want to see him," said Mr. Day to the woman. "He'll help me off with my clothes and get me into bed here. I shall be all right."
He spoke quite cheerfully now, and even Janice was recovering her self-possession.
"Oh, well, I'll telI him," murmured Mrs. Weeks. "I'm sick o' shock, myself. But we have to sacrifice when our neighbors needs us. Yes, Mr. Day, I'll send Arlo over."
She trailed out after the two men. Mrs. Peckham sniffed after her, too.
"Well," the spinster said, "I can make him some broth. He'll need nourishing victuals. And he ain't been gettin' anything of late, I guess, but what that child's messed up."
She departed kitchenward. Janice and daddy looked at each other hopelessly. Then together, and in chorus, they murmured:
"But I thought she had washed her hands of us!"
"I don't want broth," grumbled Broxton Day, after a minute. "I want my dinner. What have you got that's good, Janice?"
"Stew—lamb stew. Nice," she groaned. "And plenty of vegetables like you like."
"'Like you like' is almost as good as the stew will be," chuckled her father faintly. "We must get that woman out of the house, Janice. She will be an Old Man of the Sea."