, the planter came up from the beach, and sat
down beside the ladies.

"I have a letter from Villari, Marie," he said, "and have brought it up
to see what you and Mrs. Marston think of it."

"Amy has also received one, Tom, but would not open it nor send it
back till she had your advice. I think it is altogether wrong of him to
persecute her in this way."

"Oh, well, you'll be glad to know that he is sorry for what has
occurred. Here is his letter to me, Mrs. Marston--please read it."

The letter was a courteously worded and apparently sincere expression
of regret for having forced his attentions upon Mrs. Marston, and asking
Raymond and his wife to intercede for him with her. "It will give me
the greatest joy if she will overlook my conduct, and accept my sincere
apologies, if she does not, I shall carry the remembrance of her just
anger to the end of my life. But when I think of her past friendliness
to me, I am excited with the hope that her ever-kind heart will perhaps
make her forget my unwarrantable presumption, which I look back upon
with a feeling of wonder at my being guilty of such temerity." Then he
went on to say that Raymond would be interested to learn that he had
bought a small schooner of 100 tons called the _Lupetea_, on easy terms
of payment, and that he hoped to make a great deal of money by running
her in the inter-island trade. "I was only enabled to do this through
Mrs. Marston's generosity," he concluded--"the L500 she gave me enabled
me to make a good 'deal.' I leave Apia to-morrow for a cruise round
Upolu, and as I find that I have some cargo for you, I trust that
you, your wife, and Mrs. Marston will at least let me set foot on your
threshold once more."

"Well, the poor devil seems very sorry for having offended you so much
by his persistence, Mrs. Marston," said the planter with a laugh, "and
he writes such a pretty letter that I'm sure you won't withhold your
forgiveness."

"I don't think I can. But I must see what he has written to me," and she
opened the letter. It contained but a very few lines in the same tenour
as that to Raymond, deploring his folly and begging her forgiveness.

"I'm very glad, Tom, that Amy sent him the L500, and that he had the
sense not to again refuse it. It would always be embarrassing to you,
Amy, whenever you met him."

"It would indeed. But I doubt if he would have accepted it if it had
not been for Mr. Raymond's strongly worded letter on the subject,"