aiden May if I can
prevent him."

"No fear of that, Jacob. He, with his cursing and swearing, and his
wild, lawless ways, and his poor heart-broken, down-spirited wife, bring
up a little maid in the way she should go! She would be better off with
us as long as we had a crust to give her; and take her from us he shall
not, whatever reasons he may have for wishing it. So don't you fear,
Jacob, that I will listen to him even if he comes with 50 in his hand,
or 500 for that matter. As I said before, if we don't find fairer
friends for her than he and his wife are like to prove, Maiden May shall
be our child, bless her."

CHAPTER NINE.

A SAIL IN THE NANCY.

Captain Fancourt took his departure from Portsmouth to commission the
_Triton_, promising to send for Harry as soon as the frigate was
sufficiently advanced to give a midshipman anything to do on board.

"I will ride by a single anchor, so as to be ready to slip at a moment's
notice," answered Harry.

Harry recollected his engagement to take a cruise in Adam Halliburt's
boat.

"Come, Algernon," he said to his elder brother, a tall, slight youth,
three or four years his senior, with remarkably refined manners, "you
would enjoy a trip to sea for a few hours in the _Nancy_. It would give
you something to talk about when you go to college, and you have never
been on salt water in your life."

"Thank you," said Algernon. "I do not wish to gain my first experience
of sea life in a fishing boat."

"I want to see how these fishermen live, and I should have been glad of
your company," answered Harry; "but perhaps you would find it rather too
rough a life for your taste, so I will go alone, and to-morrow when I
return I will ride with you wherever you like."

Harry, after luncheon, set off on his pony to Hurlston, while Algernon
accompanied his mother and the two Miss Pembertons in the carriage to
the same village, where they wished to look at a cottage which Sir
Reginald had told them was to be let, and which they had proposed,
should it suit them, to take. They were much pleased with its
appearance. It stood on the higher ground above the village, surrounded
by shrubberies, in an opening through which a view of the sea was
obtained. On one side was a pretty flower-garden, and as Miss Pemberton
led her sister through the rooms and about the grounds describing the
place, they agreed that had it been built for them they could not have
been more thoroughly