, placed the bundle containing the loaf
beside him, and then began to eat heartily? Nothing of the kind. Jem
was thinking very hard about home and his little petulant, girlish wife.

Then he started and stared.

"Hullo, Jem, you here?"

"Why, Mas' Don, I thought you was at home having your tea."

"I thought you were having yours, Jem."

"No, Mas' Don," said Jem sadly; "there's my tea"--and he pointed to the
bundle handkerchief; "there's my tea; leastwise I will tell the truth,
o' course--there's part on it; t'other part's inside, for I couldn't tie
that up, or I'd ha' brought it same ways to have down here and look at
the ships."

"Then why don't you eat it, man?"

"'Cause I can't, sir. I've had so much o' my Sally that I don't want no
wittals."

Don said nothing, but sat down by Jem Wimble to look at the ships.

CHAPTER EIGHT.

KITTY CHRISTMAS SITS UP.

"My dear Laura," said Uncle Josiah that same evening, "you misjudge me;
Lindon's welfare is as dear to me as that of my little Kitty."

"But you seemed to be so hard and stern with him."

"That is your weak womanly way of looking at it, my dear I may have been
stern, but no more so than the matter warranted. No, my dear sister,
can you not see that I mean all this as a lesson for Lindon? You know
how discontented he has been with his lot, like many more boys at his
time of life, when they do not judge very well as to whether they are
well off."

"Yes, he has been unsettled lately."

"Exactly, and this is due to his connection with that ne'er-do-weel
scoundrel, for whom the boy has displayed an unconquerable liking.
Lindon has begged the man on again four times after he had been
discharged from the yard for drunkenness and neglect."

"I did not know this," said Mrs Lavington. "No, I do not bring all my
business troubles home. I consented because I wished Lindon to realise
for himself the kind of man whose cause he advocated; but I never
expected that it would be brought home to him so severely as this."

"Then indeed, Josiah, you do not think Lindon guilty?"

"Bah! Of course not, you foolish little woman. The boy is too frank
and manly, too much of a gentleman to degrade himself in such a way.
Guilty? Nonsense! Guilty of being proud and obstinate and stubborn.
Guilty of neglecting his work to listen to that idle scoundrel's
romancing about places he has never seen."

"He is so young."

"Young? Old enough to know better."

"But