Besides, Tunis Latham always cheered the girl who was playing an
imposter's part with the declaration that she had done just
right--that without her presence on Wreckers' Head Cap'n Ira and his
wife would be in a very bad way, indeed.
She could see that this was so. Her coming to them had been as great
a blessing in their lives as it had been in her own.
She fully realized that Cap'n Ira and his wife would not have
admitted her to their home and to their hearts had she come in her
own person and identity. This was not so much because of their
strict morality as because of their strict Puritanism. For a puritan
may not be moral always, but he must be just. And justice of that
character is seldom tempered by mercy. What they might have forgiven
the real Ida May they could scarcely be expected to forgive a
stranger.
In spite of this situation, the Balls were being blessed by the
presence of a girl in their household who had been tainted with a
sentence to a reformatory. Even now, when she knew they loved her
and could scarcely imagine what they would do without her, Sheila
Macklin was quite convinced that a whisper about these hidden
miseries would turn Cap'n Ball, and even Prudence, against her.
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