you know.  But every one was talking of him,
and I am afraid, dears, he was anything but
what you call respectable.  His mother was a
quiet, gentle creature, and tried all she could
with him ; and his father threatened him, even.
Colonel Tillotson, then captain, often spoke to
me about it, and I had every stage of the
business.  The mother, poor thing, I saw was fretting
herself to death about it.  But my lad went on
from bad to worse.  Now, would you ever think
it of that gentle-looking fellow ?"

"Scarcely," the eldest answered, firmly.

Alice did not reply, but was eagerly waiting
for more.

"Oh! it was very unfortunate altogether,"
uncle Diamond went on, sadly.  "And yet I
believe nobody was so much in fault, after all.
After one of the break-outs, worse than usual,
there was a scene, and his father regularly
turned him out: went further, I think, than
he ought to have done.  The poor woman
fell down half dead, and her son ran to her,
distracted; but Tillotson—the father, I mean—put
him out very harshly, I think.  The son went
away, desperately, to foreign countries.  Went on
worse there, I am afraid; and at last, in the midst
of one of his bouts, heard that his poor mother
was dying off fast, of a broken heart.  He was
going to set out all in a hurry, and in a dreadful
state, when he himself was caught by a fever.
Then some one there—a consul, I believe, for he
hadn't a soul with him—wrote over about his
state, saying that there was very little hope for
him—and then——Now, dears, I come to the
most melancholy part; for it was really a dreadful
business, and gave us all quite a shock."

He paused a moment.  The eyes of the two
girls were fixed upon him.

"There is no use dwelling on it," continued
he.  "Indeed, I don't like doing it much, for
it can be told in a word or two.  They set out
in a hurry, the poor woman getting up from her
bed, and just outside Boulogne port," added the
captain, in a low voice, "the vessel went wrong,
someway, struck on something (I don't know
whose fault it was), but neither it nor its
passengers were ever seen again.  And then there
was the other business.  But these are all dismal
old stories, my dears."

There was a silence for a few moments.  The
young girl remained in her favourite
attitude, her hands clasped round her knee, and
her eyes fixed devotionally on the teller of the
history.

"You may imagine," he went on, "what a
frightful sobering that was for him, when he
came to himself. It changed his life—changed
his ways—changed his face, even—in a day.
Before it, he was wild, extravagant, and a boy;
after it, he came home just what you saw him
yesterday.  I hardly knew him.  Dear, dear, it's
a queer world!  He's now like a hermit; shuts
himself up, brooding over all his sorrows.
What's the use of it?  Look at me, now.  Here
am I, an old fellow, with no business to be
thinking of such things, and yet, I confess, I
like life, and to see people, and to go about. I
wish," continued uncle Tom,  "we could
persuade him, and bring him round in some way.
Poor fellow!  But when he tells you, as he told
me a month ago, that he was pining for death,
and looking to it as the happiest moment, I
don't know how to take him, or what to say
to him."

"Pining for death!"  said the young girl,
sadly.  "Oh, how dreadful!  Surely something
could be done, ought to be done, at once."

"That's what I say, dear; only I'm not up
to that sort of thing.  Between ourselves, dear,
I believe I only make the thing worse.  It
requires a light touch."

They were tired with their journey, and
presently went to bed.

For a long time after, the captain sat at his
fire, smiling pleasantly in great good humour,
smoking his clay pipe, and addressing a chasm
in the live coals with a sympathising  "The
creatures! the creatures!"

  CHAPTER V.  A NEW INTEREST.

BEFORE breakfast the next morning he was
down and busy, limping about from the fire to
the table, deep in hot rolls, and hot muffins, and
toast, and various fried things that were simmering
before the fire.  In the morning the captain
was always particularly bright and almost glittering,
being surprisingly smoothly shaved, and his
whiskers oiled and curled to glossiness—an
operation which he performed with a small
French iron, purchased in Paris during that
visit after the peace.  For "the captain" took
care of everything he had, and kept them to a
surprising age.  He shaved himself with wonderful
smoothness, and took great pride in his
razors, the sharpening and stropping of which
instruments, for friends, was a favourite pastime
of his during the long evenings.  He always
wore a high black satin stock which buckled
behind, and out of which rose his sharply
pointed collars, everything about his throat
being braced up with military stiffness.  About
these little points—namely, about  "the
captain's" collars, and "the captain's" razors, and
such matters, the servants were jealously and
mysteriously careful, and even took pride;
though, indeed, it was not likely that the good
and gentle soul would be angered by any
neglect in such matters.

This morning, then, the captain was down
early, busy with the cares of preparing a breakfast,
that for quantity would have sufficed for
a party of tired and hungry troopers; for he
was of that old school that deems lavish
hospitality to be the highest and most perfect
expression of love, friendship, kindliness, and the
heartiest good will.  His niece, however, was
with him in a moment.

"You recollect," she said, "dear uncle, what
I whispered to you at the railway station, about
not mentioning the trial to Alice.  Poor child,
she does not know of it yet."

"Not know it?"  He stopped short in his