Mary-’Gusta considered.  “Yes,” she answered; “she was outspoken and blunt, of course.  But she is a lady—­a real lady, I think—­and I’m sure I should like her very much when I knew her better.  I think, though, that she would expect a person to behave—­behave in her way, I mean.”

“Judas!  I should say so.  Don’t talk!  I ain’t felt so much as if I was keepin’ my toes on a chalk mark since I went to school.  I don’t know what her husband died of, but I’ll bet ’twasn’t curvature of the spine.  If he didn’t stand up straight ’twasn’t his wife’s fault.”

Mary-’Gusta’s curiosity concerning the mysterious business which had brought them to the city became greater than ever before it was time to take the train for home.  Apparently all of that business, whatever it might be, had been transacted when her uncle and Mr. Keith took their short walk together after luncheon.  Captain Shadrach seemed to consider his Boston errand done and the pair spent half of the hour before train time wandering along Tremont and Washington Streets looking into shop windows, and the other half in the waiting room of the South Station.

Great and growing as was her curiosity, the girl asked no more questions.  She was determined not to ask them.  And the Captain, neither while in the city nor during the homeward journey, referred to the “hen” in which he and his friend from Chicago were mutually interested.  It was not until nine o’clock that evening, when supper was over and Zoeth, having locked up the store, was with them in the sitting-room, that the hitherto secretive fowl came off the nest.

Then Shadrach, having given his partner a look and received one in return, cleared his throat and spoke.

“Mary-’Gusta,” he said, “me and your Uncle Zoeth have got some news for you.  I cal’late you’ve been wonderin’ a little mite what that business of Mr. Keith’s and mine was, ain’t you?”

Mary-’Gusta smiled.  “I have wondered—­just a little,” she observed, with mild sarcasm.

“Yes—­yes, I ain’t surprised.  Well, the business is done and it’s settled, and it’s about you.”

“About me?  Why, Uncle Shad!  How can it be about me?”

“’Cause it can and it is, that’s why.  Mary-’Gusta, me and Zoeth have been thinkin’ about you a good deal lately and we’ve come to the conclusion that we ain’t treated you just right.”

“Haven’t treated me right?  You?”

“Yes, us.  You’re a good girl and a smart girl—­the smartest and best girl there is in this town.  A girl like that ought to do somethin’ better’n than stay here in South Harniss and keep store.  Keepin’ store’s all right for old hulks like Zoeth Hamilton and Shad Gould, but you ain’t an old hulk; you’re a young craft right off the ways and you ought to have a chance to cruise in the best water there is.”

“Uncle Shad, what are you talking about?  Cruise in the best water?”

“That’s what I said.  You ought to mix with the best folks and get a fine education and meet somebody besides drummers and—­and Sol Higgins’s son.  Selling coffins may be a good job, I don’t say ’tain’t; somebody’s got to do it and we’ll all have to invest in that kind of—­er—­furniture sometime or ’nother.  And Dan Higgins is a good enough boy, too.  But he ain’t your kind.”