e crowding about me on a sick-bed. And yet I am dying. This is my
last kiss. Forgive, forget the unworthy."

So far he had written, his paper was all filled, when there returned a
memory of evenings at the piano, and that song, the masterpiece of love,
in which so many have found the expression of their dearest thoughts.
"_Einst, O Wunder!_" he added. More was not required; he knew that in
his love's heart the context would spring up, escorted with fair images
and harmony; of how all through life her name should tremble in his
ears, her name be everywhere repeated in the sounds of nature; and when
death came, and he lay dissolved, her memory lingered and thrilled among
his elements.

"Once, O wonder! once from the ashes of my heart
Arose a blossom----"

Herrick and the captain finished their letters about the same time; each
was breathing deep, and their eyes met and were averted as they closed
the envelopes.

"Sorry I write so big," said the captain gruffly. "Came all of a rush,
when it did come."

"Same here," said Herrick. "I could have done with a ream when I got
started; but it's long enough for all the good I had to say."

They were still at the addresses when the clerk strolled up, smirking
and twirling his envelope, like a man well pleased. He looked over
Herrick's shoulder.

"Hullo," he said, "you ain't writing 'ome."

"I am, though," said Herrick; "she lives with my father.--O, I see what
you mean," he added. "My real name is Herrick. No more Hay"--they had
both used the same _alias_,--"no more Hay than yours, I daresay."

"Clean bowled in the middle stump!" laughed the clerk. "My name's 'Uish,
if you want to know. Everybody has a false nyme in the Pacific. Lay you
five to three the captain 'as."

"So I have too," replied the captain; "and I've never told my own since
the day I tore the title-page out of my Bowditch and flung the damned
thing into the sea. But I'll tell it to you, boys. John Davis is my
name. I'm Davis of the _Sea Ranger_."

"Dooce you are!" said Huish. "And what was she? a pirate or a slyver?"

"She was the fastest barque out of Portland, Maine," replied the
captain; "and for the way I lost her, I might as well have bored a hole
in her side with an auger."

"O, you lost her, did you?" said the clerk. "'Ope she was insured?"

No answer being returned to this sally, Huish, still brimming over with
vanity and conversation, struck into another subject.

"I've a good min