"Why, see," said Prudence, encouraged by her husband's commendation, "there might have been a neighbor woman that Sarah--your mother, you know, Ida May--was close acquainted with. Maybe she used to talk with this neighbor a good deal about her young days, and how she lived down here. You know women often gossip that way." "I'll say they do!" put in Cap'n Ira, tapping the knob of his cane. "Well, now," said the old woman, greatly interested in her own idea, and a little proud of it, "suppose that neighbor had a little girl who heard all these things Sarah Bostwick might have said. And if that child's brain wasn't just right--if she was a little weak-minded, poor thing--what's more reasonable than that she treasured it all up in her mind and after years, in one of her spells of weak-mindedness, she got the idea _she_ was Ida May Bostwick, and determined to come here and visit us!" "I swan, Prudence!" exclaimed Cap'n Ira. "It's like a story-book--a reg'lar novel." "Well, it might be," said his wife, smiling quite proudly. "Only after all, that gal didn't seem so very weak-minded," muttered Cap'n Ira. "She seemed more mean and ugly than weak." Sheila had thought somewhat along this line herself. At least, she knew how weak the real Ida May's story must sound to most people in the neighborhood, unless the claimant had actual proof of birth and name to bolster her attempt to win the Balls. There was but a tenuous thread connecting Ida May with Big Wreck Cove, or any other part of Cape Cod. The Bostwicks--the girl's immediate family, at least--were dead. These facts, already gathered by Sheila from Aunt Prudence's conversation with the neighboring women, were the foundation on which she had built her desperate hope of keeping up the deception and thwarting the other girl, no matter how bitterly the latter might press her claim. Nor was she, Sheila felt, depriving Ida May of anything which the latter, if she obtained it, would actually prize. The shallow girl was not the sort of person to appreciate the kindness of the two old people or give them any comfort and sympathy in return. Why, both Cap'n Ira and Prudence already shrank from the new claimant! This fact, however, did not cause Sheila, the imposter, to lose sight of the point that Cap'n Ira and his wife could both be very stern in attitude and speech toward the evildoer. They made no compromises with evil. Even the old man, philosophical as he was and wont to look upon most human frailities with a lenient if not a humorous eye, would not excuse actual crime. And something very like a crime had been committed. The day passed without any reappearance of Ida May upon Wreckers' Head, but just after nightfall and while the supper dishes were being cleared away, Zebedee Pauling knocked at the kitchen door. All three of the Ball household looked upon the young fellow expectantly when he stepped in.