"Then trim your sails according," admonished the old man. "In
addition, you mentioned the young woman we already got here in a way
we don't like none too well. I want to impress on your mind that it
was only through her saying she was agreeable to your coming here
that we agreed to the elder's request and let you come."
"She did, eh?" cried Ida May, flouncing in her chair. "Well, I don't
thank her."
"No. I cal'late you ain't of a thanking disposition," said Cap'n
Ira. "But you like enough won't drop your bread butter-side down.
That's all."
Ida May, startled by his speech, stared with less impudence at the
old man. For his part, the captain watched her pretty closely, and
he had met and judged too many people in his day not to form
gradually, as the hours passed, a decided opinion regarding Ida May.
Nor did he cling to his first impression--the one made in haste and
some vexation, when she had first tried to thrust herself into the
Ball household and demanded the place filled by Sheila Macklin. This
girl certainly was not insane. But with all her apparent smartness,
Cap'n Ira easily saw that she was not intelligent--that she had
scarcely ordinary understanding. Beside the newcomer's shallow
nature and even more shallow endowments, Sheila seemed to be from a
different world.
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