he high windows.

"Who spoils her, Lige?" asked the Colonel, fondly.

"Her father, I reckon," was the prompt reply.

"Who spoils you, Jinny?"

"Captain Lige," said she, turning to him. "If you had only kept the
presents you have brought me from New Orleans, you might sell out your
steamboat and be a rich man."

"He is a rich man," said the Colonel, promptly. "Did you ever miss
bringing her a present, Lige?" he asked.

"When the Cora Anderson burnt," answered the Captain.

"Why," cried Virginia, "you brought me a piece of her wheel, with the
char on it. You swam ashore with it."

"So I did," said Captain Brent. "I had forgotten that. It was when the
French dress, with the furbelows, which Madame Pitou had gotten me from
Paris for you, was lost."

"And I think I liked the piece of wheel better," says Virginia. "It was
brought me by a brave man, the last to leave his boat."

"And who should be the last to leave, but the captain? I saw the thing in
the water; and I just thought we ought to have a relic."

"Lige," said the Colonel, putting up his feet, "do you remember the
French toys you used to bring up here from New Orleans?"

"Colonel," replied Brent, "do you recall the rough and uncouth young
citizen who came over here from Cincinnati, as clerk on the Vicksburg?"

"I remember, sir, that he was so promising that they made him provisional
captain the next trip, and he was not yet twenty-four years of age."

"And do you remember buying the Vicksburg at the sheriff's sale for
twenty thousand dollars, and handing her over to young Brent, and saying,
'There, my son, she's your boat, and you can pay for her when you like'?"

"Shucks, Brent!" said Mr. Carvel, sternly, "your memory's too good. But I
proved myself a good business man, Jinny; he paid for her in a year."

"You don't mean that you made him pay you for the boat?" cried Jinny.
"Why, Pa, I didn't think you were that mean!"

The two men laughed heartily.

"I was a heap meaner," said her father. "I made him pay interest."

Virginia drew in her breath, and looked at the Colonel in amazement.

"He's the meanest man I know," said Captain Lige. "He made me pay
interest, and a mint julep."

"Upon my word, Pa," said Miss Virginia, soberly, "I shouldn't have
believed it of you."

Just then Jackson, in his white jacket; came to announce that supper was
ready, and they met Ned at the dining-room door, fairly staggering under a
load of roses.

"Marse Cl