"I'd have gone to the Cardhaven Inn to work this season, takin' Gusty Durgin's place--she that's gone to be a moving picture actress--" said Pearl briskly, "only Miz Petty said I couldn't. She claims me till I'm eighteen. Unless I get married before that time." "Whatever!" gasped Cap'n Jonah. "You don't mean to say you're thinking of getting merried--a gal like you?" "What girl doesn't think of it--even if she hasn't a living chance?" demanded Pearl, in her crisp, assertive way. "Of course I'm thinking of it; but that isn't saying I'm likely to be anything but a sour-cranberry old maid. That's what most of us Cape Cod girls turn out to be. There aren't men enough--real men, I mean--on the Cape to go 'round." She dimpled, and her expression took all the sting out of her words. She was a pretty girl--the prettiest girl Cap'n Jonah remembered ever to have seen. Being a childless widower, for many years he had "paid little attention to the sect," as he frequently stated. But there was a freshness and sweetness about Pearl, in addition to her physical gifts, that charmed the old sea captain. She stirred the fire, set the kettle forward to boil, and measured the aromatic coffee--as it seemed, all in one motion. Her activity and litheness delighted his seaman's eye. "A tidy craft!" he muttered admiringly. There was a wistful thought in the captain's mind, too. He wished he had been vouchsafed a daughter like this girl. "What's your name, Pearly?" he asked. "'Tain't Petty, I warrant." "No, sir. My name's Pearl Holden. The Holdens belong Paulmouth way. But there aren't any of 'em belonging to me--worse luck! Orrin Petty put in a claim for me after my maw's sister--Aunt Becky--died, and the selectmen let him have me. Bein' parceled out like you belonged to a litter of puppies isn't as pleasant as you might think it." "No. I guess not. I'd ought to know, too," said the captain. "I was bound out myself when I was a little skeezicks. But I run away and went to sea. Not that I bettered myself much by so doing--not for a spell," and he shook his head thoughtfully. "I guess bad luck stuck to me like a barnacle, 'cause of my name. You'd think they'd make it a crime punishable by law to give the name of 'Jonah' to a helpless child. But 'twas taken out of the Bible, and therefore bound to be a good one, my folks thought like enough. I heard of a Cape Cod man once that was named Beelzebub for the same reason." "I guess you've found," said the practical Pearl, "that a name isn't of much importance after all. Folks can be what they've a mind to be, I guess. Your name, for instance, didn't keep you from risin' to the quarterdeck." "No. I riz in spite of it," the visitor said complacently.