The captain was deep in the _Item's_ account of the recent wreck on Peaked Hill Bars. A British bark had gone ashore there and the crew had been rescued with difficulty. He was himself dragged, metaphorically speaking, from the undertow by a voice just behind him. "Well, you're takin' it easy, ain't you, Cap'n Sears?" observed Mrs. Tidditt. "I wish _I_ didn't have nothin' to do but set and read the news." "Oh, good mornin', Esther," said the captain. He was not particularly glad to see her. "What's wrong; anything?" "Nothin' but my batch of gingerbread, and a quart of molasses'll save that. Can you spare it? Oh, don't get up. I know where Judah keeps it; I've been here afore." She went to the closet, found the molasses jug, and filled her pitcher. Then she came back and sat down. She had not been invited to sit, but Esther scorned ceremony. "No, sir," she observed, as if carrying on an uninterrupted conversation, "_I_ can't set and read the newspapers. And I can't go to walk neither, even if 'tis such weather as 'tis to-day. Some folks can, though, and they've gone." Sears turned the page of the _Item_. He made no comment. His silence did not in the least disturb his caller. "Yes, they've gone," she repeated. "Right in the middle of the forenoon, too.... Oh, well! when the Admiral of all creation comes to get you to go cruisin' along with him, you go, I suppose. That is, some folks do. I'd like to see the man _I'd_ make such a fool of myself over." The captain was reading the "Local Jottings" now. Mrs. Tidditt kept serenely on. "I wouldn't let any man make such a soft-headed fool of me," she declared. "'Twould take more than a mustache and a slick tongue to get _my_ money away from me--if I had any." Sears was obliged to give up the Jottings. He sighed and put down the paper. "What's the matter, Esther?" he asked. "Who's after your money?" "Nobody, and good reason why, too. And I ain't out cruisin' 'round the fields with an Eg neither." "With an egg? Who is?" "Who do you think? Cordelia Berry, of course. Him and her have gone for what he calls a little stroll. He said she was workin' her poor brain too hard and a little fresh air would do her good. Pity about her poor brain, ain't it? Well, if 'twan't a poor one he'd never coax her into marryin' _him_, that's sartin." "Esther, don't talk foolish." "Nothin' foolish about it. If them two ain't keepin' company then I never saw anybody that was. He's callin' on her, and squirin' her 'round, and waitin' on her mornin', noon and night. And she--my patience! she might as well hang out a sign, 'Ready and Willin'.' She says he's the one real aristocrat she has seen since she left her father's home. Poor Cap'n Ike, he's all forgotten." Sears stirred uneasily. Barring Tidditt exaggeration, he was inclined to believe all this very near the truth. It merely confirmed his own suspicions.