“But, Olive” exclaimed the captain.

“There are no buts,” she interrupted.  “Not a single but, my dear Uncle John!  I have come back to stay with you, and that is all there is about it.  Mrs. Easterfield is outside in her carriage, and I must go and send her away.  But don’t you come out, Uncle John; I have some things to say to her, and I will let you know when she is going.”

As Olive sped out of the room Captain Asher turned around in his chair and looked after her.  Tears were running down his swarthy cheeks.  He did not know how or why it had all happened.  He only knew that Olive was coming back to live with him!

Meantime old Jane was entertaining Mrs. Easterfield at the toll-gate, where no money was paid, but a great deal of information gained.  The old woman had seen Miss Olive run into the house, and she was elated and excited, and consequently voluble.  Mrs. Easterfield got the full account of the one-sided courtship of the captain and Miss Port.  Even the concluding episode of Maria having been put to bed had somehow reached the ears of old Jane.  It is really wonderful how secret things do become known, for not one of the three actors in that scene would have told it on any account.  But old Jane knew it, and told it with great glee, to Mrs. Easterfield’s intense enjoyment.  Then she proceeded to praise Olive for the spirit she had shown under these trying circumstances; and, in this connection, naturally there came into the recital the spirit the old woman herself had shown under these same trying circumstances, and how she had got all ready to leave the minute the nuptial knot was tied and before that Maria Port could reach the toll-gate, although it was like tearing herself apart to leave the spot where she had lived so many years.  “But,” she concluded, “it is all right now.  The captain tells me it’s all a lie of her own makin’.  She’s good at that business, and if lies was salable she’d be rich.”

Just as the old woman reached this, what seemed to her unsophisticated mind, impossible business proposition, Olive appeared.  Mrs. Easterfield was surprised to see her so soon, and, to tell the truth, a little disappointed.  She had been greatly interested and amused by the old woman’s rapid tale, which she would not interrupt, but had put aside in her mind several questions to ask, and one of them was in relation to her husband’s late visit to the captain.  She had had no detailed account from him, and she wondered how much this old body knew about it.  She seemed to know pretty much everything.  But Olive’s appearance put an end to this absorbing conversation.

“Has you come to stay, dearie?” eagerly asked old Jane, as Olive grasped her hand.

“To be sure I have, Jane!  I have come to stay forever!”

“Thank goodness!” exclaimed the old woman.  “How the captain will brighten up!  But my!  I must go and alter the supper!”

“Mrs. Easterfield,” said Olive, when the old woman had departed, “you will have to go back without me.  I can not leave my uncle, and I am going to stay here right along.  You must not think I am ungrateful to you, or unmindful of Mr. Easterfield’s great kindness, but this is my place for the present.  Some day I know you will be good enough to let me pay you another visit.”