That in itself was a surprising fact, for it was only mid-week, and he had not heard that Sarah Petty had company. He looked again more sharply. Behind the lace curtains he saw Cap'n Jonah in his Sunday best weaving to and fro comfortably in Sarah Petty's best rocking chair. "By Hannah!" muttered the ex-steward. "Will wonders never cease--with doughnuts fried in candle grease? Cap'n Jonah in the _parlor_?" Then he stopped, struck nerveless in his tracks, by the recognition of the figure sitting at the other window. Miss Sue! The doctor's sister sat smiling, chatting most companionably with the captain. To the angry gaze of Eliphalet Truitt it seemed as though she was making a deliberate call upon the old sea-dog who had already, and more than once, expressed his admiration for Susan Ambrose. Cap'n Jonah had said a share of Miss Sue's reputed fortune would give him a certain standing in the community that he craved. The captain was, after all, to use a Shell Road term, "muchly of a man." 'Liphalet's jealous fears made instant capital of the situation. He had served for Miss Sue more than the allotted seven years Jacob served for Rachel. And was a comparative stranger, a man who had lived in the community but a few weeks, to step in and bear away the prize of the doctor's sister from under Life Truitt's very nose? Yet with all his rage and sorrow, he could not bring himself to play the rôle of fortune hunter--even in appearance--by asking Miss Sue to marry him. He turned abruptly away, hot rage seething in his heart, and went back along the way to his lonely cottage. If ever the Christmas spirit--and, indeed, every other spirit of generosity and joy--was quenched in a man's soul it was quenched now in that of the apostate Santa Claus of the Shell Road. CHAPTER XX THE ROOT OF ALL EVIL It must be true that the love of money is the root of all evil; the mere possession of it, whether one loves it or not, seems to distract humanity. Sue Ambrose's acclaimed fortune of forty thousand dollars made 'Liphalet miserable; nor did it seem to do Miss Sue herself very much good. Miss Sue's tastes were naturally simple. She had begun to dress much better than formerly, as soon as she had received the legacy from her anti-suffragist relative. But good clothes on a careful body like Sue Ambrose last a long time. She had seldom renewed her apparel during these past ten years. There was one gown, a silver-gray poplin, laid away in lavender in her chest that Miss Sue never saw without a tear and a sigh. She had never worn it. It had been purchased immediately on the lawyers having paid over to her the legacy which had made such a difference in her quiet life. She had bought it for a certain occasion, and to her modest surprise that occasion had never arisen.