e, thank the Lord! I don't fret so long as he's aboard a
well-found ship. 'Twas his signing aboard the _One-and-All_--'
Rosewarne's coffin,' they call her--that nigh broke me. He didn' let me
know till two nights afore he sailed. 'Beggars can't be choosers,' he
said; and afterwards I found out from Peter Benny that he'd covered his
poor body with tattoo marks--his body that I've a-washed hundreds o'
times, and loved to feel his legs kickin' agen' me. Beautiful skin he had
as a child; soft as satin the feel of it, and not a blemish anywhere.
'Tis hard to think of it criss-crossed with them nasty marks. But there!
thank the Lord God he's safe, this passage! Read me what he says, there's
a kind soul; but you'll have to bear a child afore you know what I've
a-been going through wi' that letter starin' me in the face."

Hester, resting a shoulder against one of the oaken pillars of the
gallery, where the sunshine touched her face with colour, broke the seal.

"Here is an enclosure--a post-office order for fifty shillings."

"God bless him! 'tis Welcome; though I could have made shift at a pinch.
Peter Benny manages these things for me," said Mrs. Trevarthen, folding it
lengthwise and inserting it between the buttons of her bodice. What she
meant was that Mr. Benny as a rule attested her mark and brought her the
money from the post-office. But Hester, busy with her own thoughts,
scarcely heard. Why had Tom Trevarthen pretended to her that he could not
write? Why had he trapped her into writing a letter for him--and to this
Harriet, whoever she might be? She unfolded the letter and read, in bold,
clear penmanship--

Quebec, 14th February 1872.

"My dear Mother,--This is to enclose what I can, and to tell you we
arrived yesterday after a fair passage, and dropped hook in the Basin
below Quebec; all on board well and hearty, including Miss Myra and
Master Clem. But between ourselves the old man won't last many more
trips. His head is weakening, and Mrs. Purchase, though she won't
own to it, is fairly worn with watching him. We hadn't scarcely
cleared the Channel before we ran into dirty weather, with the wind
to N.W. and rising. We looked, of course, for the old man to
shorten sail and send her along easy, he being noted for caution.
But not a bit of it. The second day out he comes forward to me,
that stood cocking an eye al