E-text prepared by Mary Glenn Krause, David E. Brown, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from page images generously made available by Internet Archive (https://archive.org) Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustrations. See 57531-h.htm or 57531-h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/57531/57531-h/57531-h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/57531/57531-h.zip) Images of the original pages are available through Internet Archive. See https://archive.org/details/mermaidoverton00overiala Transcriber’s note: Text in italics is surrounded by underscores: _italics_. Superscripted text is preceded by a carat character and is enclosed in brackets (example: H^{2}SO^{4}). MERMAID [Illustration: “_‘Out of the ocean you came,’ he said.... ‘Mermaid! The name is poetry and the story is romance’_”] MERMAID by GRANT M. OVERTON [Illustration] Frontispiece by Henry A. Botkin Garden City New York Doubleday, Page & Company 1920 Copyright, 1920, by Doubleday, Page & Company All Rights Reserved, Including That of Translation into Foreign Languages, Including the Scandinavian FOR GENE STRATTON-PORTER MERMAID MERMAID PART ONE I “No one,” snapped Keturah Smiley, “can play Providence to a married couple.” “Some women can play Lucifer,” retorted her brother. His hoarse but not unmusical voice shook with anger. “I had nothing to do with your wife’s running away,” Keturah Smiley answered. “What is this child you have adopted?” “I have adopted no child,” said Cap’n John Smiley with coldness. “A child was saved from the wreck of the _Mermaid_ and the men at the station have adopted her. The fancy struck them and--I certainly had no objection. It’s--she’s--a girl, a little girl of about six. We don’t know her name. The men are calling her Mermaid after the ship.” Keturah Smiley sniffed. She wrapped the man’s coat she wore more closely about her, and made as if to return to her gardening.