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Like the honest, straightforward mariner he was, Captain Cephas made an exact report of the facts.”They was huggin’ when I left them,” he said, “and I expect they went indoors pretty soon, fer it was too cold outside. It’s an all-fired shame she happened to be in your house, cap’n, that’s all I’ve got to say about it. It’s a thunderin’ shame.”

Captain Eli made no answer. He still sat with his elbows on his knees and his hands in his hair.

“A better course than you laid down fer these Christmas times was never dotted on a chart,” continued Captain Cephas.”From port of sailin’ to port of entry you laid it down clear and fine. But it seems there was rocks that wasn’t marked on the chart.”

“Yes,” groaned Captain Eli, “there was rocks.”

Captain Cephas made no attempt to comfort his friend, but went to work to get breakfast.

When that meal–a rather silent one–was over, Captain Eli felt better.”There was rocks,” he said, “and not a breaker to show where they lay, and I struck ’em bow on. So that’s the end of that voyage. But I’ve tuk to my boats, cap’n, I’ve tuk to my boats.”

“I’m glad to hear you’ve tuk to your boats,” said Captain Cephas, with an approving glance upon his friend.

About ten minutes afterwards Captain Eli said, “I’m goin’ up to my house.”

“By yourself?” said the other.

“Yes, by myself. I’d rather go alone. I don’t intend to mind anything, and I’m goin’ to tell her that she can stay there and spend Christmas,–the place she lives in ain’t no place to spend Christmas,–and she can make the little gal have a good time, and go ‘long just as we intended to go ‘long–plum-duff and mince-pie all the same. I can stay here, and you and me can have our Christmas dinner together, if we choose to give it that name.

And if she ain’t ready to go to-morrow, she can stay a day or two longer. It’s all the same to me, if it’s the same to you, cap’n.”

Captain Cephas having said that it was the same to him, Captain Eli put on his cap and buttoned up his pea-jacket, declaring that the sooner he got to his house the better, as she might be thinking that she would have to move out of it now that things were different.

Before Captain Eli reached his house he saw something which pleased him. He saw the sea-going stranger, with his back toward him, walking rapidly in the direction of the village store.

Captain Eli quickly entered his house, and in the doorway of the room where the tree was he met Mrs. Trimmer, beaming brighter than any morning sun that ever rose.

“Merry Christmas!” she exclaimed, holding out both her hands.”I’ve been wondering and wondering when you’d come to bid me ‘Merry Christmas’–the merriest Christmas I’ve ever had.”

Captain Eli took her hands and bid her “Merry Christmas” very gravely.

She looked a little surprised.”What’s the matter, Captain Eli?” she exclaimed.”You don’t seem to say that as if you meant it.”

“Oh, yes, I do,” he answered.”This must be an all-fired–I mean a thunderin’ happy Christmas fer you, Mrs. Trimmer.”

“Yes,” said she, her face beaming again.”And to think that it should happen on Christmas day–that this blessed morning, before anything else happened, my Bob, my only brother, should–“

“Your what!” roared Captain Eli, as if he had been shouting orders in a raging storm.

Mrs. Trimmer stepped back almost frightened.”My brother,” said she.”Didn’t he tell you he was my brother–my brother Bob, who sailed away a year before I was married, and who has been in Africa and China and I don’t know where?It’s so long since I heard that he’d gone into trading at Singapore that I’d given him up as married and settled in foreign parts. And here he has come to me as if he’d tumbled from the sky on this blessed Christmas morning.”