got a niece living--a great-niece she is," answered Captain
Ball, with a broad smile--"makes me feel old. You see, my
half-brother was a grown man when I was born. I never saw him
scarcely; there was some misunderstanding an' he always lived with his
own mother's folks; and father, he married again, and had me and Ann
thirty year after. Why, my half-brother 'd been 'most a hundred; I
don't know but more."

Captain Ball spoke in a cheerful tone; the audience meditated, and
Captain Allister mentioned meekly that time did slip away.

"Ever see any of 'em?" he inquired. In some way public interest was
aroused in the niece.

"Ever see any of 'em?" repeated the captain, in a loud tone. "You
fool, Allister, who's keepin' my house this minute? Why, Ann French;
Ann Ball that was, and a smart, likely woman she is. I ain't a
marryin' man: there's been plenty o' fools to try me. I've been picked
over well by you and others, and I thought if 't pleased you, you
could take your own time."

The honest captain for once lent himself to deception. One would have
thought that he had planned the siege himself. He took his stick from
where it leaned against a decaying piece of ship-timber and went
clicking away. The explanation of his housekeeping arrangements was
not long in flying about the town, and Mrs. Captain Topliff made an
early call to say that she had always suspected it from the first,
from the family likeness.

From this time Captain Ball submitted to the rule of Mrs. French, and
under her sensible and fearless sway became, as everybody said, more
like other people than ever before. As he grew older it was more and
more convenient to have a superior officer to save him from petty
responsibilities. But now and then, after the first relief at finding
that Mrs. French was not seeking his hand in marriage, and that the
jiggeting girl was a mere fabrication, Captain Ball was both surprised
and a little ashamed to discover that something in his heart had
suffered disappointment in the matter of the great-niece. Those who
knew him well would have as soon expected to see a flower grow out of
a cobble-stone as that Captain Asaph Ball should hide such a sentiment
in his honest breast. He had fancied her a pretty girl in a pink
dress, who would make some life in the quiet house, and sit and sing
at her sewing by the front window, in all her foolish furbelows, as he
came up the street.

BY THE MORNING BOAT.

On the coast