was a girl that you knew, and
I don't want it talked about for fear of getting you into trouble. Keep
_me_ out of it; that's all I ask."

"If cheek will pull you through," said Fraser, with a slight display of
emotion, "you'll do. Perhaps I'd better say that Miss Tyrell came to see
me, too. How would you like that?"

"Ah, it would be as well," said Flower, heartily. "I never thought of
it."

He stepped ashore, and at an easy pace walked along the steep road which
led to the houses above. The afternoon was merging into evening, and
a pleasant stillness was in the air. Menfolk working in their cottage
gardens saluted him as he passed, and the occasional whiteness of a face
at the back of a window indicated an interest in his affairs on the
part of the fairer citizens of Seabridge. At the gate of the first of
an ancient row of cottages, conveniently situated within hail of The
Grapes, The Thorn, and The Swan, he paused, and walking up the trim-kept
garden path, knocked at the door.

It was opened by a stranger--a woman of early middle age, dressed in a
style to which the inhabitants of the row had long been unaccustomed.
The practised eye of the skipper at once classed her as "rather
good-looking."

"Captain Barber's in the garden," she said, smiling. "He wasn't
expecting you'd be up just yet."

The skipper followed her in silence, and, after shaking hands with the
short, red-faced man with the grey beard and shaven lip, who sat with a
paper on his knee, stood watching in blank astonishment as the stranger
carefully filled the old man's pipe and gave him a light. Their eyes
meeting, the uncle winked solemnly at the nephew.

"This is Mrs. Church," he said, slowly; "this is my nevy, Cap'n Fred
Flower."

"I should have known him anywhere," declared Mrs. Church; "the likeness
is wonderful."

Captain Barber chuckled--loudly enough for them to hear.

"Me and Mrs. Church have been watering the flowers," he said. "Give 'em
a good watering, we have."

"I never really knew before what a lot there was in watering," admitted
Mrs. Church.

"There's a right way and a wrong in doing everything," said Captain
Barber, severely; "most people chooses the wrong. If it wasn't so, those
of us who have got on, wouldn't have got on."

"That's very true," said Mrs. Church, shaking her head.

"And them as haven't got on would have got on," said the philosopher,
following up his train of thought. "If you would just go out and get