"Did you wish to see Mrs. Ball?" asked Sheila, eying the visitor with nothing more than curiosity.
"I guess so. She is Mrs. Prudence Ball, isn't she?"
"Yes. Mrs. Ball and the captain have gone away for the day. I am ever so sorry. You wished to see her particularly?"
"I guess I did." The stranger looked her over with more interest. "Say, how old are the Balls?"
The abrupt question drew a more penetrating look from Sheila. The visitor certainly was not Cape bred. Her smart cheapness did not attract Sheila at all. There was something so unwholesome about her that the observer had difficulty in suppressing a shudder. Yet her prettiness was orchidlike. But there are poisonous orchids.
"They are quite old people," Sheila said, finally answering the question. "Cap'n Ira is over seventy and Prudence is not far from that age. You—you are not acquainted with them?"
"I never saw 'em. But I've heard a lot about 'em," said the stranger, with a light laugh. "They are sort of relations of mine."
"You are a relative?" asked the girl. Even then she had no thought of who this newcomer was. "Cap'n Ira's relative? Or Mrs. Ball's, if I may ask?"
"Well, I guess it is the old woman's. But I'm kind of curious to see 'em first, you know, before I make any strong play in the relationship game. Gee! Is this the parlor furniture?"
"Some of it," was the wondering rejoinder.