No Place For the Soles Of their Feet

"Your business career?"

"Certainly, sir!" She bobbed a little courtesy. "I have money, sir!
Money of my own. Five thousand dollars in the bank, if you please! Oh,
you need not stare at me. I did not earn it. My dear mother's sister
left it to me in her will. And some day when you are walking down the
city street you'll see a little brass sign--very bright, very neat--and
there'll be 'Polly' on it. Then you may come up and call on the great
milliner--that will be this person, now so humble."

"But that young man!" he protested, smiling at her gaiety.

"Oh, that young man?" She wrinkled her nose. Then she flushed, conscious
that he was a bit surprised at her tone of disdain. "Why, he will wear a
frock-coat and a flower in the buttonhole and will bow in my customers.
You didn't think my young man was a farmer-boy, did you?"

She hurried ahead of him to the beach, where her father was waiting with
his men. Captain Candage had borrowed a dory for the trip. He installed
himself in the stern with the steer-oar, and the young man and the girl
sat together on the midship seat. The skipper listened to their chat
with bland content.

"There's a fellow that's one of our kind, and he ain't trying to court
my girl," he had confided to Mr. Speed. "He is spoke for and she knows
it. And under them circumstances I believe in encouraging young folks to
be sociable."