"I have the other young woman's promise that she will tell her story to nobody else—nobody at all—until I can hear from those whom she says are her employers. But with the understanding that you will do your part."
"What's that?" asked Cap'n Ira quickly.
"She wants to come up here and stay with you. She says she is sure you are her relatives. She says if you will let her come, she will be able to prove to you that she is the real niece you expected—whom you sent for last summer."
"Why, she's crazy!" again cried Cap'n Ira.
"I—I am almost afraid of her," murmured Prudence, looking from Sheila to her husband.
"I assure you, Sister Ball, she is not insane. She is harmless."
"She didn't talk as though she was when she was here—not by a jugful," declared Cap'n Ira bitterly.
"That was because she was angry," explained Elder Minnett patiently. "You must not judge her by her appearance when she came here the other day and found—as she declares—another girl in her rightful place."
"I swan!" exclaimed the old shipmaster, bursting out again. "I won't stand for that. Her rightful place, indeed! Why, if she was forty times Prudence's niece and we didn't want her here, what's to make us take her, I want to know?"
"Do you think we ought to, Elder?" questioned Prudence faintly.