as they crossed
the Common, with Dick and Rover following behind; the latter being too
hungry even to bark, and only able to give a faint wag of his tail now
and then when especially addressed by name. "Wait till to-morrow!"

CHAPTER SEVEN.

A SOUTH-EASTERLY GALE.

"Oh, Nell!" cried Bob to his sister the same evening, some time after
dinner, which, through their explorations on the beach, was somewhat
later than usual--"I do wonder what that mysterious `something' is the
Captain keeps promising us for `to-morrow.' Can he be thinking of
taking us for a trip on the sea in his yacht, or what?"

"I wonder," was all Nellie could say in reply to her brother's remark,
echoing, so to speak, his own words--"I do wonder--what he is going to
do, Bob?"

Their anxious curiosity, however, availed them naught; the old sailor
keeping provokingly silent and being as mute as the Sphinx on the
subject, in spite of their wistful looks and watchfulness.

Throughout the evening the Captain only opened his lips to say to Mrs
Gilmour, with whom he was playing one of those post-prandial games of
cribbage which it had been his wont to indulge in before the advent of
Bob and Nellie on the scene to interrupt their regular routine, "Fifteen
four and two for his heels," or "I'll take three for a flush, ma'am," as
the case might be. He only made use of such-like technical phraseology
common to cribbage players, limiting his conversation to the game alone;
without leaving a loophole for either of the impatient listeners in the
comer, who were turning over picture-books and otherwise diverting
themselves, equally silently, till bedtime, to get in a word edgeways.

It was positively exasperating to Bob; especially as, the moment the old
sailor chanced to notice one or other of the children eyeing him more
attentively than usual on his looking up from the cards before him, he
would smile knowingly and nod his head in the most waggish fashion.

"I don't think he means anything in particular at all," said the
restless Master Bob a little later on to Nellie again. "See how funny
he looks! He's only `taking a rise' out of us, as he calls it."

"No, Bob," said Nellie, catching another quizzical look from the Captain
just at that moment, "I don't think that. I'm sure he means something
from that way he winked at us. Besides, Bob, he promised, and you know
that Captain Dresser never breaks his word!"

Presently the report of the nine o'cl