"I reckon he warn't. And she thinks she can keep that girl of hers out of the same kind of discipline that she had to take,--that's the truth of it." "Cur'ous, ain't it?" ruminated Captain Smart. "A woman's bound to take it one way or 'nother; there seems to be more sorts of belayin' pins to knock 'em over with than they, any on 'em, kinder cal'late on at first." "So there be," assented Captain Phippeny. Near the water, with its fading, rose-colored reflections, not so far from the anchored vessels but they might, had they chosen, have spoken across to those on board, the monotonous, austere, and yet vaguely soft gray of the old town rising behind them against the melting sky, sat Mellony Pember and Ira Baldwin. "If you'd only make up your mind, Mellony," urged the young man. "I can't, Ira; don't ask me." The young girl's face, which was delicate in outline, was troubled, and the sensitive curves of her lips trembled. The faded blue of her dress harmonized with the soft tones of the scene; her hat lay beside her, an uncurled, articulated ostrich feather standing up in it like an exclamation point of brilliant red. The young man pulled his hat over his eyes and looked over to the nearest boat. Mellony glanced at him timidly. "You see, I'm all she's got," she said. "I ain't goin' to take you away from her, unless you want to go," he replied, without looking at her. "She thinks I'll be happier if I don't--if I don't marry." "Happier!"--he paused in scorn--"and she badgerin' you all the time if you take a walk with me, and watchin' us as if we were thieves! You ain't happy now, are you?" "No." Mellony's eyes filled, and a sigh caught and became almost a sob. "Well, I wish she'd give me a try at makin' you happy, that's all." His would-be sulkiness softened into a tender sense of injury. Mellony twisted her hands together, and looked over beyond the vessels to the long, narrow neck of land with its clustering houses, beyond which again, unseen, were booming the waves of the Atlantic. "Oh, if I only knew what to do!" she exclaimed,--"if I only knew what to do!" "I'll tell you what to do, Mellony," he began. "There's ma, now," she interrupted. Ira turned quickly and looked over his shoulder. Across the uneven ground, straight towards them, came the figure of Mrs. Pember. The tenseness of her expression had further yielded to resolution, which had in turn taken on a stolidity which declared itself unassailable. No one of the three spoke as she seated herself on a bit of timber near them, and, folding her hands, waited with the immobility and the apparent impartiality of Fate itself. At last Mellony spoke, for of the three she was the most acutely sensitive to the situation, and the least capable of enduring it silently. "Which way did you come, ma?" she asked. "I come down Rosaly's Lane," Mrs. Pember answered. "I met Cap'n Phippeny, and he told me you was down here." "I'm obligated to Cap'n Phippeny," observed Ira, bitterly.