"That wasn't Tunis' fault," snapped the old man. "He had to get shet of her somehow. We expect she'll try to make trouble."
"Oh, as for that," said Zeb, with some relief, "I don't see, even if she is your niece, why she should expect you to take her in if you don't want to!"
"She ain't," said Cap'n Ira flatly. "You can take that from me, Zeb."
"Not any relation at all?"
"None at all, as far as we know," declared the captain.
"Then what does she want to talk the way she does, for?" cried the young man. "I told mom she was crazy, and now I know she is."
"I guess likely," agreed the old man, taking upon himself the burden of the explanation. "None of us up here ever saw the gal before. Neither Prudence nor me nor Ida May. She's loony!"
"I told mom so," reiterated Zeb, with a great sigh of relief. "I know what she said must be a pack of foolishness. But you know how mom is. I—"
"She's soft. I know," returned Cap'n Ira.
"She's so tender-hearted," explained Zeb. "The girl talks so. She's talked mom not into believing in her, but into kind of listening and sympathizing with her. And now, to-night, she's took her to see Elder Minnett."