Captain Shad nodded emphatically. "You bet!" he declared. "Don't seem to
me I ever remember a nicer one."

"Nor I, neither. I--I wonder--"

"Well, heave ahead. What are you waitin' for? What do you wonder?"

"I was just wonderin' if 'twas right for us to be so happy."

"Right?"

"Yes. Have we been--well, good enough this past year to deserve
happiness like this?"

Shadrach grinned.

"I ain't puttin' in any testimony on my own hook," he said, dryly, "but
I don't seem to remember your bein' desperately wicked, Zoeth. Course
you MAY have got drunk and disorderly that time when Mary-'Gusta and I
left you and went to Boston, but I kind of doubt it."

"Hush, hush, Shadrach! Don't joke about serious things. What I mean is
have you and I walked the Lord's way as straight as we'd ought to? We've
tried--that is, seems 's if we had--but I don't know. Anyhow, all this
afternoon I've had a funny feelin' that you and me and Mary-'Gusta
was--well was as if the tide had been comin' in for us all these years
since she's been livin' with us, and as if now 'twould begin to go out
again."

The Captain laughed. "And that's what you call a FUNNY feelin'!" he