The little girl approached her. The old lady sat in one of the straightest of the straight-backed chairs, her hands in her comfortable lap. The wet blue eyes were raised to her composed face timidly. “If you wish to say your prayers here, before going upstairs, you may, Carolyn May,” she said. “Oh, may I?” gasped the little girl. She dropped her hands into Aunty Rose’s lap. Somehow they found those larger, comforting hands and cuddled into them as the little girl sank to her knees on the braided mat. If the simple “Now I lay me” was familiar to Aunty Rose’s ear from long ago, she gave no sign. When the earnest little voice added to the formal supplication a desire for the blessing of “Uncle Joe and Aunty Rose,” the latter’s countenance retained its composure. She asked a blessing upon all her friends, including the Prices, and even Prince. But it was after that she put the timid question to Aunty Rose that proved to be almost too much for that good woman’s studied calm. “Aunty Rose, do you s’pose I might ask God to bless my mamma and papa, even if they _are_ lost at sea? Somehow, I don’t think it would seem so lonesome if I could keep _that_ in my prayer.” CHAPTER IV—“WELL—SHE’LL BE A NUISANCE” Mr. Joseph Stagg, going down to his store, past the home and carpenter shop of Jedidiah Parlow, at which he did not even look, finally came to his destination in a very brown study. So disturbed had he been by the arrival of his little niece that he forgot to question and cross-question young Chetwood Gormley regarding the possible customers that had been in the store during his absence. “And I tell you what I think, mother,” Chet said, with his mouth full, at supper that evening. “I think her coming’s goin’ to bring about changes. Yes, ma’am!” Mrs. Gormley was a faded little woman—a widow—who went out sewing for better-to-do people in Sunrise Cove. She naturally thought her boy Chetwood a great deal smarter than other people thought him. And—as was natural, too—Chet developed something like keenness in the sunshine of her approval. “You know, mother,” he said, on this evening of the arrival of Carolyn May, “I never _have_ seen any great chance to rise, workin’ for Mr. Joseph Stagg. His ain’t a business that offers an aspirin’ feller much advancement.” “But he _pays_ you, Chet,” his mother said anxiously. “Yep. I know. Don’t be afraid I’ll leave him till I see something better,” he reassured her. “But I might be clerkin’ for him till the cows come home and never see more’n six or eight dollars a week. But now it’s apt to be different.” “How different, Chet?” she asked, puzzled.