lin, and drawing the child's fair head on his breast, "I never
spoke to you before on a subject that p'r'aps you won't understand, but
I am forced to do it now. It's about money."

"About money!" exclaimed Polly in surprise; "oh, father, surely you
forget! The very last night we spent on shore, you spoke to me about
money; you gave me a half-sovereign, and said you meant to give a
blow-out to old Mrs Brown before leaving, and told me to buy--stay, let
me see--there was half a pound of tea, and four pounds of sugar, and
three penn'orth of snuff, and--"

"Yes, yes, Polly," interrupted the captain, with a smile, "but I meant
about money in a business way, you know, because if you chanced, d'ee
see, ever to be in England without me, you know,--it--"

"But I'll never be there without you, father, will I?" asked the child
with an earnest look.

"Of course not--that's to say, I _hope_ not--but you know, Polly, that
God arranges all the affairs of this world, and sometimes in His love
and wisdom He sees fit to separate people--for a time, you know, _only_
for a time--so that they don't always keep together. Now, my darling,
if it should please Him to send me cruising to--to--anywhere in a
different direction from you, and you chanced ever to be in England
alone--in Scotland, that is--at your own home, you must go to Bailie
Trench--you know him--our old friend and helper when we were in shoal
water, my dear, and say to him that I handed all my savings over to Mr
Wilkins--that's Watty's father, Poll--to be invested in the way he
thought best. When you tell that to Bailie Trench he'll know what to
do; he understands all about it. I might send you to Mr Wilkins direct
but he's a very great man, d'ee see, and doesn't know you, and might
refuse to give you the money."

"To give me the money, father! But what should I do with the money when
I got it?"

"Keep it, my darling."

"Oh! I see, keep it safe for you till you came back?" said Polly.

"Just so, Poll, you're a clever girl; keep it for me till I come back,
or rather take it to Bailie Trench and he'll tell you how to keep it.
It's a good pot o' money, Poll, and has cost me the best part of a
lifetime, workin' hard and spendin' little, to lay it by. Once I used
to think," continued the captain in a sad soliloquising tone, "that I'd
live to cast anchor near the old spot, and spend it with your mother,
Polly, and you; but the Lord willed it otherwise, and He does all