To be near her, to work with her in church affairs, occasionally to pick out on his flute "Black-Eyed Susan" or "Fisher's Hornpipe" to the accompaniment of her melodeon, was all very well. But these were poor substitutes for the dream of hearth and home which had so long stirred his imagination. That last homeward voyage had been a memorable one for 'Liphalet. With the younger officers, he secretly agreed that "the girls are pulling the _Sadie Vars_ home with their apron strings." The old windjammer seemed fairly to fly. Even during the usually tedious railroad trip along the backbone of the Cape the minutes seemed to flow swiftly. 'Liphalet had scarcely felt, on that past occasion, the creaking platform planks of the Paulmouth station under his feet when he landed; and when he climbed to the seat beside Noah Coffin, the stage driver, that portion of the Cape Cod landscape within range of his vision was painted in rainbow hues. But in ten minutes (how sharply he remembered it now!) a mental typhoon had overcast the captain's horizon and drowned all the roseate colors with a pall of dreary drab. "Gre't changes around Cardhaven since you was last there, 'Liphalet," the gossipy stage driver had almost immediately said. "They've painted the town pump." "Same old crop of happenings, I reckon, Noah," the cheerful mariner rejoined. "Some's died, some's been born, an'--any marriages?" "Not ter speak of," Noah said, turning the cud in his cheek like a ruminative cow. "Got a heiress among us now." The explosion of this bombshell of news made but little impression upon 'Liphalet until Noah added: "Doc Ambrose's sister--ye know, that little old maid, Susan--has fell heir, they do say, to forty thousand dollars." "By Hannah!" 'Liphalet ejaculated. "What's that you say, Noah?" "Yes-sir-ree-sir!" declared the stage driver, slowly and with unction. "Some female rel'tive, they say, livin' at a distance and who was eternally opposed to this here new move for women votin'--what d'ye call 'em, 'Liphalet? Sufferin'----" "Suffragists?" barked the ex-steward. "Yep. That's it. Wal, this old woman give all her fortune, they say, to Susan Ambrose pervidin' she never votes. For-ty-thous-and-dol-lars!" sighed Noah. "I've voted forty odd year, 'Liphalet, an' never picked the winnin' side in nary 'lection yet. I wish't somebody had offered me a fortune not to vote." "Forty thousand dollars," murmured Eliphalet Truitt.