to you, Captain Leary----"

"Hush, John. Captain"--beside her husband Mrs. Lowe stood
trembling--"Captain Leary, we've a little girl--an' the story's around
the bay----"

Leary raised a hand. "I know, ma'am; I know. Your daughter, Mrs. Lowe,
she's safe. Yes, John Lowe, safe--in every way safe. No thanks to me,
but to herself. And she and me, we're going to be married. Yes, ma'am,
married. Don't look so hard, man. You're thinkin' now, I know--you're
thinkin' it's a poor pilot I'll be for her on life's course?"

"Ay, I'm thinkin' so, captain, and not afeard to say it--I fear no man.
Ay, a poor compass."

"Compass? There--a fine word, compass. But the compass itself that 'most
every one thinks is so true, John Lowe, we have to make allowances for
it, don't we? And after we've made the allowances, it's as though it
never pointed anywhere but true north, isn't it? There's only one circle
on the ocean, John Lowe, where a compass don't veer, but every ship
can't be always on that line. And even when you're sailin' that one
circle, John Lowe, there's sometimes deviations. And me--no doubt I have
my little variations and deviations."

"Ay, no doubt o' that," muttered John Lowe.

"Ay, like everything and everybody else, John Lowe. But at last I've got
to where I think I know what little allowances to make. I think so. And
after we've made our little allowances, and we c'n make 'em in advance
same's if we took it from a chart, why--there's Sammie Leary as true as
the next one."

Mrs. Lowe laid her hand on the American's arm. "And Bess, captain; where
is she?"

"Outside, Mrs. Lowe, with Tim. And she's waiting."

"Waiting for what?"

"To be asked inside. Will I call her?"

"Call her, captain--call her."

"Yes, Mrs. Lowe, but--" Leary faced the man at the table.

"Oh, well"--John Lowe sighed. "No doubt you ha' the right o' it,
captain. You're one who ha' sailed many courses, an' your navigation,
'tis possible, is better than mine. Call her, captain, call her."

Next morning, for all the bay to see, the curtains in John Lowe's house
were raised high.

HOW THEY GOT THE "HATTIE RENNISH"

On the word being passed that Alec Corning was back from the West Coast,
a few reminiscent friends went to hunt him up, and found him in the
Anchorage, in a back room overlooking Duncan's wharf; and Alec was
agreeable, over a social glass and a good cigar, to explain how it came
he was back in Gloucester.

"If they'd only