I'm afraid it's a Banian day, and Molly will not have anything
nice for you."

"Never mind that, ma'am. I want to take you all down to see the wreck
at high-water," said he. "It will probably be the last of the old
ship."

"Hurrah!" exclaimed Bob, pitching his hat in the air, and catching it
dexterously again. "Won't that be jolly?"

On Nell now coming downstairs, they proceeded on their respective ways;
the Captain into Portsmouth, and Mrs Gilmour, with Bob and Nellie,
accompanied by Dick carrying a basket, to Mrs Craddock's old-fashioned
cottage, at Fratton--almost in the opposite direction.

Here Mrs Gilmour, after one or two inquiries, discovered, much to her
satisfaction, that the widow and her daughter were the wife and child of
her husband's boatswain, whence ensued much talk between herself and the
old lady, who declared the invalid to be "the very image of poor dear
Craddock!"

While their elders were conversing, Nellie was also having a chat with
the bedridden girl, who, she was glad to see, looked decidedly better
than at the time of her last visit; an improvement doubtless due to the
Captain's old port; and other nourishing things Mrs Gilmour had taken
her.

Bob meanwhile had been overhauling the various curios in the little
parlour, where the invalid was lying, this being the first time he had
been there.

"Oh, auntie," he called out presently, "do look at this Chinese idol
here! It's just like one I saw at the South Kensington Museum, only it
has such funny wooden shoes on."

Mrs Gilmour came across the room to look at the monster figure
squatting down in the corner; but, on Bob's showing her the shoes, she
laughed.

"Those are not Chinese, my boy," she exclaimed, "they are a pair of
wooden sabots from France, such as are worn by the peasants of Brittany
and Normandy."

"You're quite right, my lady," said the widow Craddock, approaching
them. "My son, who was a sailor like his father, found them on board a
French vessel he helped that was in distress in the Channel; so, he
brought them home and stuck them on that there h'image in fun. Lawk,
mum, if them wooden shoes could talk, it's a queer tale they'd tell ye,
fur they was the means, or leastways it wer' through his boarding the
vessel where he found 'em, that my son Jim, which was his name, my lady,
come to give up the sea; although, mind you, he's summat to do with it
still, being a fisherman fur that matter. However, the end of i