“Being of age, you ought to know better, but being of age, you can do what you want to with your own. Do you promise never to let on to anybody about this?”
“I do promise, solemnly.”
“Then you sign some papers when I get 'em drawn up, and I'll hand 'em the money; but look-a-here, if I go chasing 'em with five thousand dollars, I'll have 'em suspecting that I'm crazy, or something worse. It ain't like Rufus Rowley to do a thing of this sort with his money.”
“I know it,” she confessed, softening her frank agreement with an ingenuous smile. “But Captain Mayo is coming to you to-morrow morning on business about the schooner, and you can put the matter to him in some way. Oh, I know you're so keen and smart you can do it without his suspecting a thing.”
“I don't know whether you're complimenting me or sassing me, miss. But I'll see it through, somehow.”
She signed the papers giving him power of attorney, left her bank-book with him, and went away into the night, her face radiant.
She threw a happy kiss at the dim anchor light which marked the location of the Ethel and May in the harbor.
“I am helping you get the girl you love,” she said, aloud.
She went on toward the widow's cottage. Her head was erect, but there were tears on her cheeks.