when I come up over the bluff from the shore sudden, they was sitting
together on a rock and he had his arm round her waist. I dropped a hint
to Phoebe Ann, but she shut me up quicker'n a snap-hinge match-box.
Allie had charmed 'auntie' all right. And so it drifted along till
September.

"One Monday evening about the middle of the month I went over to Phoebe
Ann's to borrow some matches. Barbara wasn't in--gone out to lock up
the hens, or some such fool excuse. But Phoebe was busting full of joy.
Cap'n Eben had arrived in New York a good deal sooner'n was expected and
would be home on Thursday morning.

"'He's going from Boston to Provincetown on the steamer, Wednesday,'
says Phoebe. 'He's got some business over there. Then he's coming home
from Provincetown on the early train. Ain't that splendid?'

"I thought 'twas splendid for more reasons than one, and I went out
feeling good. But as I come round the corner of the house there was
somebody by the back gate, and I heard a girl's voice sayin': 'Oh, no,
no! I can't! I can't!'

"If I hadn't trod on a stick maybe I'd have heard more, but the racket
broke up the party. Barbara come hurrying past me into the house, and
by the light from the back door, I see her face. 'Twas white as a
clam-shell, and she looked frightened to death.

"Thinks I: 'That's funny! It's a providence Eben's coming home so soon.'

"And the next day I saw her again, and she was just as white and
wouldn't look me in the eye. Wednesday, though, I felt better, for the