"Does he?" said the captain, quietly. "As
I ain't acquainted with him, who may he
be?"

"Mr. Tregarthen is Kitty's father."

"Ay, ay!" cried the captain. "Now, you
speak! Tregarthen knows this village of
Lanrean, then?"

"Beyond all doubt he does. I have often
heard him mention it, as being his native place.
He knows it well."

"Stop half a moment," said the captain. "We
want a name here. You could ask Tregarthen
(or if you couldn't, I could) what names of old
men he remembers in his time in those
diggings? Hey?"

"I can go straight to his cottage, and ask
him now."

"Take me with you," said the captain, rising
in a solid way that had a most comfortable
reliability in it, "and just a word more, first. I
knocked about harder than you, and have
got along further than you. I have had, all my
sea-going life long, to keep my wits polished
bright with acid and friction, like the brass cases
of the ship's instruments. I'll keep you company
on this expedition. Now, you don't live by talking,
any more than I do. Clench that hand of
yours in this hand of mine, and that's a speech on
both sides."

Captain Jorgan took command of the expedition
with that hearty shake. He at once
refolded the paper exactly as before, replaced
it in the bottle, put the stopper in, put the
oilskin over the stopper, confided the whole to
Young Raybrock's keeping, and led the way
down stairs.

But it was harder navigation below stairs
than above. The instant they set foot in the
parlour, the quick womanly eye detected that
there was something wrong. Kitty exclaimed,
frightened, as she ran to her lover's side,
"Alfred! What's the matter?" Mrs. Raybrock
cried out to the captain, "Gracious! what have
you done to my son to change him like this, all
in a minute!" And the young widow—who
was there with her work upon her arm was
at first so agitated, that she frightened the little
girl she held in her hand, who hid her face in
her mother's skirts and screamed. The captain,
conscious of being held responsible for
this domestic change, contemplated it with
quite a guilty expression of countenance, and
looked to the young fisherman to come to his
rescue.

"Kitty darling," said Young Raybrock,
"Kitty, dearest love, I must go away to Lanrean,
and I don't know where else or how much
farther, this very day. Worse than that—our
marriage, Kitty, must be put off, and I don't
know for how long."

Kitty stared at him, in doubt and wonder and
in anger, and pushed him from her with her
hand

"Put off?" cried Mrs. Raybrock. "The
marriage put off? And you going to Lanrean!
"Why, in the name of the dear Lord?"

"Mother dear, I can't say why, I must not
say why. It would be dishonourable and
undutiful to say why."

"Dishonourable and undutiful?" returned
the dame. "And is there nothing dishonourable
or undutiful in the boy's breaking the heart
of his own plighted love, and his mother's heart
too, for the sake of the dark secrets and counsels
of a wicked stranger? Why did you ever
come here?" she apostrophised the innocent
captain. "Who wanted you? Where did you
come from? Why couldn't you rest in your
own bad place, wherever it is, instead of disturbing
the peace of quiet unoffending folk like us?"

"And what," sobbed the poor little Kitty,
"have I ever done to you, you hard and cruel
captain, that you should come and serve me so?"

And then they both began to weep most pitifully,
while the captain could only look from the
one to the other, and lay hold of himself by the
coat-collar.

"Margaret," said the poor young fisherman,
on his knees at Kitty's feet, while Kitty kept
both her hands before her tearful face, to shut
out the traitor from her view—but kept her
fingers wide asunder and looked at him all the
time: "Margaret, you have suffered so much,
so uncomplainingly, and are always so careful
and considerate! Do take my part, for poor
Hugh's sake!"

The quiet Margaret was not appealed to in
vain. "I will, Alfred," she returned, "and I
do. I wish this gentleman had never come
near us;" whereupon the captain laid hold of
himself the tighter; "but I take your part, for
all that. I am sure you have some strong reason
and some sufficient reason for what you do,
strange as it is, and even for not saying why you
do it, strange as that is. And, Kitty darling,
you are bound to think so, more than any one,
for true love believes everything, and bears
everything, and trusts everything. And mother
dear, you are bound to think so too, for you
know you have been blest with good sons, whose
word was always as good as their oath, and who
were brought up in as true a sense of honour as
any gentlemen in this land. And I am sure you
have no more call, mother, to doubt your living
son than to doubt your dead son; and for the
sake of the dear dead, I stand up for the dear
living."

"Wa'al now," the captain struck in, with
enthusiasm, "this I say. That whether your
opinions flatter me or not, you are a young
woman of sense and spirit and feeling; and I'd
sooner have you by my side, in the hour of
danger, than a good half of the men I've ever
fallen in with—or fallen out with, ayther."

Margaret did not return the captain's compliment,
or appear fully to reciprocate his good
opinion, but she applied herself to the consolation
of Kitty and of Kitty's mother-in-law that
was to have been next Monday week, and soon
restored the parlour to a quiet condition.

'Kitty, my darling," said the young fisher-
man, " I must go to your father to entreat him
still to trust me in spite of this wretched change
and mystery, and to ask him for some directions