nt
persuaded Miss Sniffen to elope with me; and, with the entire cash
assets of the bank, we fled together." He paused, overcome with
emotion. "But fate decreed it otherwise. In my feverish haste, I had
forgotten to place among the stores of my pirate craft that peculiar
kind of chocolate caramel to which Eliza Jane was most partial. We
were obliged to put into New Rochelle on the second day out, to enable
Miss Sniffen to procure that delicacy at the nearest confectioner's,
and match some zephyr worsteds at the first fancy shop. Fatal mistake.
She went--she never returned!" In a moment he resumed in a choking
voice, "After a week's weary waiting, I was obliged to put to sea
again, bearing a broken heart and the broken bank of her father. I
have never seen her since."

"And you still love her?" asked the Amazon queen, excitedly.

"Aye, forever!"

"Noble youth. Here take the reward of thy fidelity, for know, Bromley
Chitterlings, that I am Eliza Jane. Wearied with waiting, I embarked
on a Peruvian guano ship--but it's a long story, dear."

"And altogether too thin," said the Boy Avenger, fiercely, releasing
himself from her encircling arms. "Eliza Jane's age, a year ago, was
only thirteen, and you are forty, if a day."

"True," she returned, sadly, "but I have suffered much, and time passes
rapidly, and I've grown. You would scarcely believe that this is my
own hair."

"I know not," he replied, in gloomy abstraction.

"Forgive my deceit," she returned. "If you are affianced to another,
let me at least be--a mother to you."

The Pirate Prodigy started, and tears came to his eyes. The scene was
affecting in the extreme. Several of the oldest seamen--men who had
gone through scenes of suffering with tearless eyes and unblanched
cheeks--now retired to the spirit-room to conceal their emotion. A few
went into caucus in the forecastle, and returned with the request that
the Amazonian queen should hereafter be known as the "Queen of the
Pirates' Isle."

"Mother!" gasped the Pirate Prodigy.

"My son!" screamed the Amazonian queen.

They embraced. At the same moment a loud flop was heard on the
quarter-deck. It was the forgotten mermaid, who, emerging from her
state-room and ascending the companion-way at that moment, had fainted
at the spectacle. The Pirate Prodigy rushed to her side with a bottle
of smelling-salts.

She recovered slowly. "Permit me," she said, rising with dignity, "to
leave th