rtless. Would a real mother be willing to sacrifice her only
daughter?"

Mrs. Randall gave a sudden start, and looked keenly into the eyes of
the girl standing so defiantly before her. "Does she suspect
anything?" she asked herself. Then she gave a nervous laugh, and
resumed her seat.

"Leave me alone now," she ordered. "I see it is no use talking to you
any more to-night, you are so unreasonable and headstrong. Your father
will have to take you in hand. He will soon knock this nonsense out of
your head. He is determined that you shall marry Mr. Donaster, and you
might as well make up your mind to that first as last."

"Mother, I shall go now. But let me tell you, as I shall tell daddy,
that nothing on earth can make me marry the man I do not love."

"Tut, tut. Love has nothing to do with marriages these days," Mrs.
Randall impatiently replied. "There is no such a thing as love in
marriage, it is merely a matter of convenience."

"If I believed that, I should never marry, mother."

"And don't you?"

"Indeed I do not."

"What do you know about love?"

"I know, perhaps, more than you think." The girl's face was now deeply
flushed, and this her mother noted.

"Jess, what is the meaning of this? Is there someone else in whom you
are interested besides Mr. Donaster? Tell me. I must know the truth
at once. It is no use trying to conceal it from me."

The girl's eyes dropped, and she turned her face partly away to hide
her emotion.

"In Mr. Donaster I am not even interested," she confessed. "But in
another, I am more than interested, for I love him with my whole heart.
There, you now know the truth, and so you can say and do what you like.
Goodnight."

Without another word, the girl turned and hurried out of the room,
leaving her mother speechless with anger and amazement.

CHAPTER III

THE "EB AN' FLO"

Just how it happened Samuel Tobin, owner and captain of the "Eb and
Flo," was never able to explain with any degree of clearness. He knew
that he was on his knees, scrubbing the floor of the little cabin and
humming

"Here I'll raise my Ebenezer,
Hither by Thy grace I'll come,"

when a form darkened the narrow doorway overhead.

Then followed a scream of fright, and before he had hardly time to look
around she was lying by his side, a confused heap of silk, lace, and
flowing dark-brown hair.

"Well, I'll be jiggered!" Samuel exclaimed, scrambling to his feet.
"What in