bottle!"

I never meant, of course, to have said a word of this, but was carried
away by that common old idea of consoling great sorrow with a greater
one. And the sense of my imprudence broke vexatiously upon me when the
old man came and stood between me and his daughter's portraits.

"Well, I never!" he exclaimed, with his bright eyes steadfast with
amazement. "I know you now, miss. Now I knows you. To think what a set
of blind newts us must be! And you the very moral of your poor father,
in a female kind of way! To be sure, how well I knew the Captain! A
nicer man never walked the earth, neither a more unlucky one."

"I beg you--let me beg you," I began to say; "since you have found me
out like this--"

"Hush, miss, hush! Not my own wife shall know, unless your own tongue
telleth her. A proud man I shall be, Miss Raumur," he continued, with
emphasis on my local name, "if aught can be found in my power to serve
you. Why, Lord bless you, miss," he whispered, looking round, "your
father and I has spent hours together! He were that pleasant in his ways
and words, he would drop in from his fishing, when the water was too
low, and sit on that very same bench where you sat, and smoke his pipe
with me, and tell me about battles, and ask me about bread. And many a
time I have slipped up the gate, to give him more water for his flies
to play, and the fish not to see him so plainly. Ah, we have had many
pleasant spells together; and his eldest boy and girl, Master George and
Miss Henrietta, used to come and fetch our eggs. My Polly there was in
love with him, we said; she sat upon his lap so, when she were two years
old, and played with his beautiful hair, and blubbered--oh, she did
blubber, when the Captain went away!"

This invested Polly with new interest for me, and made me determine to
spare no pains in putting her pretty figure well upon the plank. Then
I said to the miller, "How kind of you to draw up your sluice-gates to
oblige my father! Now will you put them down and keep them down, to do a
great service both to him and me?"

Without a moment's hesitation, he promised that any thing he could do
should be done, if I would only tell him what I wanted. But perhaps it
would be better to have our talk outside. Taking this hint, I followed
him back to the bench in the open garden, and there explained what I
wished to have done, and no longer concealed the true reason. The good
miller answered that with all his heart