al
embarrassment. "Tell me, now, aren't you ashamed of yourself?"

Taking off his hat and shoving his hands through his hair until he
raised it up on the top of his head in a high ridge, he looked at his
tormentors appealingly; although, the merry twinkle in his bird-like
eyes took off somewhat from his contrition.

"Do forgive me!" implored he in accents that had a very suspicious
chuckle about them. "I confess my sins!"

"You must clear yourself completely, sir, before you can hope to obtain
absolution for your sins of omission," insisted Mrs Gilmour, pretending
to be very stern indeed. "Now, prisoner at the bar, answer truly, have
you or have you not got a yacht?"

"I have," he replied solemnly, entering into her humour. "By Jove, I
have, ma'am!"

"Well, I'm glad to hear that at all events," retorted his questioner in
rather an injudicial way. "Sure, I didn't think you had one at all, not
having seen it after all your talking about it. What sort of a yacht is
it, now?"

"Only a half-decked little cutter of about two or three tons," answered
the Captain abjectly, trying to minimise his offence. "A very little
one, ma'am, I assure you."

Mrs Gilmour burst into a fit of laughter, in which they all joined
heartily; the barrister's jovial roar being heard above the music of the
band.

"Ah, no wonder you didn't like my seeing it!" she cried with pleasant
irony, which, however, made the old sailor wince, this "yacht" of his
being a subject on which he was wont to enlarge amongst his friends.
"Why, from what you said, I thought she was a big schooner like the one
that took the cup at Cowes last year when we all went over with those
horrid Tomkinses to see the regatta! Call that a yacht, a boat of such
a size? I call it a cockleshell!"

This nettled the Captain very considerably, it must be confessed.

"Well, ma'am, you may call it what you please," he replied shortly, with
some little heat, putting on his hat again and jamming it down on his
head firmly, using a good deal of force as if expending in that way his
latent caloric. "But, cockleshell or no cockleshell, she's big enough
for me!"

"But, Captain dear, isn't there room enough for me, too?" asked Nell
coaxingly, seeing that he was vexed, and sliding her little hand into
his, as if to show that she at all events was not joining in the fun
against him. "Won't you take Bob and me?"

Her touch somehow or, other banished his pettishness, enabling