fied her. "Poor old man!" she thought, "sickness makes
him testy."

"Good-bye, little girl," said Mr Shank, as he stood with his hand on
the door-latch; "you'll come again soon?"

"If Aunt Sally sends me; but you must promise not to accuse Ned
wrongfully. Good-bye!" answered Mary, as she stepped over the
threshold, the old man immediately closing and bolting the door.

Ned, who had been on the watch at a little distance, sprang forward to
meet her. She did not tell him what old Mr Shank had said, as she
naturally thought that it would make him indignant; and like a wise girl
she confined herself merely to saying how glad he seemed to be to get
the food, and how pool and wretched he looked.

Mary and Ned had a pleasant walk home. After this she paid several
visits to old Mr Shank, sometimes with Aunt Sally, at others with the
lieutenant and Ned, but she always carried the basket and presented the
contents to the old man. Aunt Sally would not believe that he was
really a miser, although the people called him one. The cottage was his
own, and he obtained periodically a few shillings at the bank, but this
was all he was known to possess, and the amount was insufficient to
supply him with the bare necessaries of life. He picked up sticks and
bits of coal which fell from carts for firing. He possessed a few
goats, which lived at free quarters on the downs, and their winter food
cost but little. He sold the kids and part of the milk which he did not
consume. He seemed grateful to Mary, and talked to her more than to any
one else; but to Aunt Sally and the lieutenant he rarely uttered a word
beyond a cold expression of thanks for the gifts they bestowed upon him.

Ned in the meantime was waiting anxiously for an answer to the letter
his uncle had written Messrs. Clew, Earring and Grummet, the shipowners.
After some delay a reply was received from a clerk, stating that Mr
Clew was dead, and that the other partners were unable to comply with
the lieutenant's request unless a considerable premium was paid, which
was utterly beyond his means.

This was a great disappointment to Ned.

"Don't fret over it, my boy," said his uncle, "we shall all find many
things to bear up against through life. There's a good time coming for
all of us, if we'll only wait patiently for it. I ought to have been an
admiral, and so I might if my leg hadn't been knocked away by a Turkish
round shot at Navarin; but you see, notwithstandin