Sears, although he chuckled a good deal over the affair, was a trifle annoyed, nevertheless. It was a good joke, of course, and he certainly cared little for the approval or disapproval of Miss Elvira Snowden. But when he considered what the prim spinster's version of the happening was likely to be and the reputation her story was sure to confer, inside the Fair Harbor fences at least, upon him and his household companion, he was tempted to wish that that companion's musical talent had been hidden under a napkin, or, better still, a feather bed. He--Kendrick--was to live, for a time indefinite, next door to the Fair Harborites, and it is always pleasant to be on good terms with one's neighbors. True, those neighbors might be, the majority of them, what Mr. Cahoon called them--which was whatever term of approbrium he happened to think of at the moment, "pack of old hens" being the mildest--but the captain knew that one, at least, was not an "old hen." "That Berry girl," which was his way of thinking of her, was attractive and kind and a lady. They had met but once, it is true, but she had made a most favorable impression upon him. He had caught glimpses of her on two occasions, in the Fair Harbor grounds, and once she had waved a greeting. She was a nice girl, he was sure of it. If she thought at all of the cripple next door he would like her to think of him in a kindly way, as a decent sort of hulk, so to speak. It was provoking to feel that she would next hear of him as a dissipated ruffian, friend and defender of another ruffian who howled ribald songs in the presence--or at least in the hearing--of ladies. He questioned Judah concerning the Fair Harbor, its founder and the dwellers within its gates. Judah told him what he knew of the story, which was very little more than the captain already knew, his knowledge gained from his sister's letters. Captain Sylvanus Seymour had had but one child, his daughter Lobelia. At his death she, of course, inherited all his property. According to Bayport gossip, as reported by Mr. Cahoon, the old man had died worth anywhere from one half a million to three or five millions. "Richer'n dock mud, I cal'late he was," declared Judah. "Made a lot of money out of his Boston shippin' business and a lot more out of stocks and city real estate and one thing or 'nother." For years after Captain Sylvanus died Lobelia lived alone in the big house. Then she had married. Judah could tell little about the man she married.