A scuffling on the steps and the sound of men's voices interrupted the words.

The kitchen door swung open and Zenas Henry's lanky form appeared on the threshold. Behind him, like a foreshortened shadow, tagged his crony, Lemuel Gill.

"Well, well, 'Becca, if here ain't Lemmy come to fetch you!" Abbie cried. "'Fraid your wife had deserted you, Lemmy? She ain't. She was just this minute settin' out for home."

"I warn't worryin' none," grinned Lemuel.

"What you two been doin'?" Abbie inquired of her husband.

"Oh, nothin' much," answered the big, loose-jointed fellow, shuffling into the room. "We've been[14] settin' out, drinkin' in the air."

[14]

The carelessness of the reply was a trifle overdone, and instantly aroused the keen-eyed Abbie's suspicions.

She glanced into his face.

"Guess we're goin' to have rain," he ventured.

"I wouldn't wonder," rejoined Lemuel Gill.

Humming to prove he was entirely at his ease, Zenas Henry ambled to the window and looked out.

"Where you been settin'?" demanded Abbie.

"Settin'? Oh, Lemmy an' me took sort of a little jaunt along the shore. Grand day to be abroad. I never saw a finer. The sea's blue as a corn-flower, an' the waves are rollin' in, an' rollin' in, an'—"

"They generally are," Abbie interrupted dryly. "Just where'd you particularly notice 'em?"

Lemuel Gill stepped into the breach.

"'Twas this way," began he. "Zenas Henry an' me thought we'd take a bit of a meander. We'd been to the postoffice an' was standin' in the doorway when we spied Charlie Eldridge goin' by with a fish-pole—"

"Charlie Eldridge—the bank cashier?" Rebecca echoed. "But he ain't no fisherman. What on earth was he doin' with a fish-pole?"

"That's what we wondered," said Lemuel.

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