to make it all right.

Your affectionate son, SAMUEL COLBERT.

"Have you three lots?" I asked, a good deal surprised, for I didn't know
that Rectus was a property-owner.

"Yes," said he; "my grandmother left them to me."

"Are they right next to your father's lot, which Chipperton cut into?"

"No, they're nowhere near it," said Rectus.

I burst out laughing.

"That letter wont do any good," I said.

"You'll see," said Rectus, and he went off to mail it.

I don't know what kind of a business man Mr. Chipperton was, but when
Rectus told him that he had written a letter to his father which would
make the thing all right, he was perfectly satisfied; and the next day
we all went out in a sail-boat to the coral-reef, and had a splendid
time, and the "Tigress" went off without any Chippertons. I think Mr.
Chipperton put the whole thing down as the result of his lecture to
Rectus up in the silk-cotton tree.

CHAPTER XV.

A STRANGE THING HAPPENS TO ME.

For several days after our hot chase after Priscilla, we saw nothing of
this ex-emissary. Indeed, we began to be afraid that something had
happened to her. She was such a regular attendant at the
hotel-door-market, that people were talking about missing her black face
and her chattering tongue. But she turned up one morning as gay and
skippy as ever, and we saw her leaning against the side of one of the
door-ways of the court in her favorite easy attitude, with her head on
one side and one foot crossed over the other, which made her look like a
bronze figure such as they put under kerosene lamps. In one hand she had
her big straw hat, and in the other a bunch of rose-buds. The moment she
saw Corny she stepped up to her.

"Wont you buy some rose-buds, missy?" she said. "De puttiest rose-buds I
ever brought you yit."

Corny looked at her with a withering glare, but Priscilla didn't wither
a bit. She was a poor hand at withering.

"Please buy 'em, missy. I kep' 'em fur you. I been a-keepin' 'em all de
mornin'."

"I don't see how you dare ask me to buy your flowers!" exclaimed Corny.
"Go away! I never want to see you again. After all you did----"

"Please, missy, buy jist this one bunch. These is the puttiest red-rose
buds in dis whole town. De red roses nearly all gone."

"Nearly all gone," said I. "What do you mean by telling such a fib?"--I
was going to say "lie," which was nearer the truth (if that isn't a
bull); but there were