"You was too young when she died. And you
being brought up among the Bostwicks, you didn't know much about us
down here on the Cape. But don't you remember any neighbor that
lived near you there in Boston that had a gal something like this
crazy one that come here?"
"I swan!" ejaculated Cap'n Ira. "You're coming out strong, old
woman, I do say."
Sheila could only shake her head.
"Why, see," said Prudence, encouraged by her husband's commendation,
"there might have been a neighbor woman that Sarah--your mother, you
know, Ida May--was close acquainted with. Maybe she used to talk
with this neighbor a good deal about her young days, and how she
lived down here. You know women often gossip that way."
"I'll say they do!" put in Cap'n Ira, tapping the knob of his cane.
"Well, now," said the old woman, greatly interested in her own idea,
and a little proud of it, "suppose that neighbor had a little girl
who heard all these things Sarah Bostwick might have said. And if
that child's brain wasn't just right--if she was a little
weak-minded, poor thing--what's more reasonable than that she
treasured it all up in her mind and after years, in one of her
spells of weak-mindedness, she got the idea _she_ was Ida May
Bostwick, and determined to come here and visit us!"
"I swan, Prudence!" exclaimed Cap'n Ira.
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