Joel’s brown cheeks were covered with slow fire; but his voice was steady enough when he replied. “It’s a kind offer, sir,” he said. “I know well what store you set by that tub.”

“Will you be wanting it?” Asa still insisted.

“I’ll see,” said Joel quietly. “I will see.”

The brothers of the House of Shore had been, on the whole, slow to take to themselves wives. Matt had never married, nor Noah, nor Mark. John had a wife for the weeks he was at home before his last cruise; but he did not take her with him on that voyage, and there was no John Shore to carry on the name.

John Shore’s widow was called Rachel. She had been Rachel Holt; and her sister’s name was Priscilla. Rachel was one of those women who suggest slumbering fires; she was slow of speech, and quiet, and calm.... But John Shore and Mark had both loved her; and when she married John, Mark laughed a hard and reckless laugh that made the woman afraid. 31 John and Mark never spoke, one to another, after that marriage.

Rachel’s sister, Priscilla, was a gay and careless child. She was six years younger than Joel, and she had acquired in babyhood the habit of thinking Joel the most wonderful created thing. Their yards adjoined; and she was the baby of her family, and he of his. Thus the big boy and the little girl had always been comrades and allies against the world. Before Joel first went to sea, as ship’s boy, the two had decided they would some day be married....

Joel went to supper that night at Priscilla&