“I wouldn’t tell any one to his face what you write about people to other people, Maria Brand,” he rejoined. “I still have your letter in which you wrote me that Cap’n Smiley’s sister----” “I never wrote such a letter!” almost shrieked Maria Brand, with a look of half terror at the keeper, whose eye, fixed on the glittering ocean, remained there. Ho Ha, turning to Mrs. Dayton as if he were finishing a sentence addressed to her, went on implacably. “--if you must look after other people’s children, why not look after your husband’s?” Mrs. Dayton went red and white, half opened her lips, and then started to walk rapidly away. The ranks had broken. Miss Errily and Maria Brand, followed by Mrs. Horton, were also in rapid retreat in the direction taken by Amelia Dayton who had no children, and whose husband’s did not bear the name of Dayton. Cap’n Smiley frowned on his surfman. “That was going too far!” he censured him. “Not a bit, not a bit!” said Ho Ha with heat. “Nothing but a pack of busybodies! Dick Dayton’s brats roll in dirt while Amelia Dayton lends money at usury. My regret is that I didn’t get a chance to ask Jane Horton if she had paid her farmer’s fine yet. You know he watered the milk and I can guess by whose orders!” VI For the birthday party they had Mrs. Biggles and her Henry as guests, and a great cake made by Ho Ha from a recipe supplied by Mrs. Biggles. It carried seven candles--one for each of Mermaid’s years and one, the same ones, to be sure, for each of her seven uncles. Dad, as Cap’n Smiley desired her to call him, blew them all out with one vasty breath, whereat Mrs. Biggles cried out that this was Mermaid’s privilege. But the little girl could not extinguish her seven candles all at once any more than she could kiss her seven uncles collectively, so she gave individual attention to each candle and each uncle. Mrs. Biggles must have a kiss, too, and returned it several times over; and became so excited that she kissed her Henry in his and the public eye, but then, as she observed, his whiskers left her hardly any other region and her surroundings left her hardly any other choice. There was much jesting and even a drinking of healths in some cider Mrs. Biggles’s Henry had contributed, the chief toast being Cap’n Smiley’s “to my seven surfmen and one surfwoman” with a pinch of Mermaid’s soft pink cheek.