The little girl was Bos'n.
"Sit down, Cap'n," said Miss Phoebe, indicating the visitor's chair.
"What was it you wanted to see me about ?" The captain accepted the invitation to be seated, but he did not immediately reply to Miss Dawes's question.

He dropped his hat on the floor, crossed his legs, uncrossed them, and then observed that it was pretty summery weather for so late in the fall.

The teacher admitted the truth of his assertion and waited for him to continue.
"I--I s'pose school's pretty full, now that cranb'ryin' 's over," said Captain Cy.
"Yes, pretty full." "Gettin' along first rate with the scholars, I hear." "Yes." This was a most unpromising beginning, really no beginning at all.

The captain cleared his throat, set his teeth, and, without looking at his companion, dove headlong into the business which had brought him there.
"Miss Dawes," he said, "I--I s'pose you know that Bos'n--I mean Emily there--is livin' at my house and that I'm taking care of her for--for the present." The lady smiled.
"Yes," she said.

"I gathered as much from what you said when we first met." She herself had said one or two things on that occasion.