in style. I bait the horses there."

"Oh, I'll walk," she told him brightly. "I can get dinner there, I
suppose?"

"Warn't they expectin' you at Cap'n Abe's?" the stage driver asked. "I
want to know! Oh, yes. You can buy your dinner at the tavern. But
'tain't a long walk to Cap'n Abe's. Not fur beyond the Mariner's Chapel."

Louise thanked him. A young man was coming down the steps of the
post-office. He was a more than ordinarily good-looking young fellow,
deeply tanned, with a rather humorous twist to his shaven lips, and with
steady blue eyes. He was dressed in quite common clothing: the jersey,
high boots, and sou'wester of a fisherman.

He looked at Louise, but not offensively. He did not remove his hat as
he spoke.

"I heard Noah say you wished to go to Cap'n Abe's store," he observed
with neither an assumption of familiarity nor any bucolic embarrassment.
"I am bound that way myself."

"Thank you!" she said with just enough dignity to warn him to keep his
distance if he chanced to be contemplating anything familiar. "But I
shall dine at the hotel first."

A brighter color flooded into his cheeks and Louise felt that she might
have been too sharp with him. She mended this by adding:

"You may tell me how to get to the Shell Road and Mr. Silt's, if you will