"And 'Liphalet!" pursued the doctor's sister, "you'll be at the meeting, too, won't you? We shall need some of you menfolk when it comes to the real work, and we shall be glad to have your advice now." "Hum! I'll see," muttered 'Liphalet not at all inclined, it would seem, to make the promise. "We shall be looking for you," said the gentle little woman, as she turned from the door. "Please remember." Eliphalet Truitt stepped back into his kitchen and found it empty save for Bo'sun, the big white cat, who purred contentedly on the stove hearth. Cap'n Jonah, thinking his friend was about to receive other company, had slipped out of the rear door and departed, 'cross-lots, toward the Petty place. 'Liphalet glanced out of the partly closed door again, holding it ajar with his hand, and watched the trim figure of the doctor's sister hurrying along the Shell Road. How often he had thus peered after Sue Ambrose since his establishment ten years before in this little box of a house next to the Mariner's Chapel! The ex-steward was old-fashioned in dress and speech; but he was as spry "alow and aloft" as when he had retired from the sea and had come to Cardhaven to live. Nor did he expect, when he so retired, that he would remain a bachelor for the rest of his life. He had a competence ample for two plain people, much more than one would possibly need. For several years before leaving the sea he had looked forward to the time when he could settle down, ask a "certain party" (as he always expressed it even in his own mind) to share his little fortune, and to sag into comfortable old age on one side of a cheerful hearth while she sat on the other. He visualized this idea often while at sea to keep his heart up in storm and stress during long and tedious voyages to the world's end; for Eliphalet Truitt had been a deep bottom sailor--none more so among the ancient skippers of the Cape than this taut little ship's steward. He had made friends of every soul along the Shell Road, for they found Eliphalet Truitt a true man, and liberal in every sense--with money, with his time, and, as well, in his religious views. The chapel was a union church; all manner of doctrinal beliefs were represented in its congregation, even to the Roman Catholic in the person of 'Suz Montevedo, the Portuguese, who was indefatigable in his attendance at Sunday-school and took his weekly golden-text reward cards home and hoarded them. 'Liphalet, living so close to the chapel, acted as an unpaid sexton. He was at hand to light the lamps, to build and care for fires, and the key of the vestry door was always to be found hanging on a nail on the ex-steward's porch.