get the stranger away.

As they walked rapidly toward Captain Eli's house there was
very little said by either Captain Cephas or the stranger. The
latter seemed anxious to give Mrs. Trimmer a surprise, and not to
say anything which might enable another person to interfere with
his project.

The two men had scarcely stepped upon the piazza when Mrs.
Trimmer, who had been expecting early visitors, opened the door.
She was about to call out "Merry Christmas!" but, her eyes
falling upon a stranger, the words stopped at her lips.
First she turned red, then she turned pale, and Captain Cephas
thought she was about to fall. But before she could do this the
stranger had her in his arms. She opened her eyes, which for a
moment she had closed, and, gazing into his face, she put her
arms around his neck. Then Captain Cephas came away, without
thinking of the little girl and the pleasure she would have in
discovering her Christmas stocking.

When he had been left alone, Captain Eli sat down near the
kitchen stove, close to the very kettle which he had filled with
water to heat for the benefit of the man he had helped bring in
from the sea, and, with his elbows on his knees and his fingers
in his hair, he darkly pondered.

"If I'd only slept with my hard-o'-hearin' ear up," he said
to himself, "I'd never have heard it."

In a few moments his better nature condemned this thought.