"I expect they will!" said Mary dryly.
Then, all in a moment, she was laughing and crying on his shoulder.
"Calvin!" she cried. "Calvin, you foolish creatur'! you don't need to go to Bath to find the Mary Sands. I'm Mary Sands!"
"You!" said Calvin Parks.
She glanced up at him, and broke down again in laughter and tears.
"You needn't look like a stone image!" she cried. "'Tis so! I've been Mary Sands right along. It sounded so comical your callin' me Hands, I wouldn't let Cousins tell you. If I've stopped them once I have twenty times. Besides, you was so mad at a woman's bein' owner of your schooner, I couldn't help but laugh every time I thought of it. I s'pose I've been foolish about it, but it's been a kind of play to me all this time. Calvin, you make me act real forth-puttin', but—if you won't speak for yourself—there! will you be master of the Mary Sands, afloat and shore?"
She held out her hands with a pretty gesture. Calvin grasped them so hard that she cried out, and his face, white again under its brown, set in dogged lines of gentle obstinacy, the most hopeless kind.
"I can't!" he said. "Mary, all the more I can't because you are a rich woman. You see that, don't you? I'm sure you must see that, Mary. Soon as ever I've aimed that money again—"
"Oh! plague take the money," cried Mary, her patience giving way. "Give it to the cat; she's fitter to take care of it than you are, Calvin Parks. There! you do try me. You ain't fit to live alone, no more than—and my goodness gracious me!" she cried, her voice changing suddenly; "if I hadn't clean forgotten Cousins! Calvin, you've got to stay by us, you've just plain and simple got to! Hush! hold your obstinate tongue and listen to me. Cousin Sam had an accident yesterday. He was out with the old hoss of all, and they met the snow-plough, and if that old creatur' didn't leap over the stone wall and smash the sleigh to kindlin' wood! Cousin Sam's all stove up inside, he thinks, but I'm in hopes not. There's no bones broke, and I guess all he got was a good shakin' up; but anyway, he's in bed, and can't move hand or foot. And I can't take care of him and Cousin Sim, and keep house, and see to the stock and poultry too, Calvin Parks; now I can't! I've got to have help!"
At this moment a jingling of bells was heard outside; Mary stepped to the window. "Who on earth comes here?" she exclaimed. "Of all the queer-lookin' turnouts—do look here, Calvin!"