, indignantly. "Do
you think Jane won't be glad to see you? Why, she's been fretting her
heart into fiddle-strings arter you all these last six months that you
never wrote, thinking you was gone down to Davy Jones's locker!"

"I'm very sorry I couldn't write from Melbourne," I said. "We were so
hurried that I had hardly time to get once ashore. You got my other
letters, though, eh?"

"Oh, aye," replied Sam, as we went along the familiar old Stoke road
that I knew so well, although it was now so long since I had seen it.
"You've been main good in writin', laddie, an' I don't know what Jane
would ha' done without your letters. She thinks you're Teddy still, I
believe, and seems to have got fonder than ever of you since you left.
Do you know what the woman did when Cap'en Billings came to tell us how
he'd seen you, and you was goin' on first-rate?"

"No, I'm sure I can't say," I answered.

"Blest if she didn't throw her arms round his neck and kiss him--just
because he had last seen you!"

I did not laugh at this, as Sam did; I only thought of the great
affection, which, so undeserved by me, I had drawn from Jane Pengelly's
great heart!

Presently, we came in sight of the cottage.

There it was, porch, creepers, and all, just as I had left it, only now
the glow of the fuchsias had gone, with that of the scarlet geraniums
and other flowers of summer; still, the autumn tints of the Virginian
creeper, hanging down in festoons of russet and yellow and red from the
roof, gave all the colouring that was wanted.

Sam opened the door and walked in, as usual; but it was before his usual
time for returning from Plymouth, so Jane came out of the kitchen in
surprise--this I could hear, for I remained without in the porch till he
had warned her of my coming.

"Deary me, Sam, you are early," she said. "Why, the pasty won't be done
for an hour and more."

"What, have you got a Mevagissey pie ag'in for dinner?"

"Yes, Sam," she replied.

"Now, that's curious," Sam said.

I could almost have felt certain that I knew what he was doing when he
spoke those words in that way. He must have taken off his hat and begun
scratching his head reflectively with the other hand, I'm certain!

"Curious?" repeated Jane. "Why?"

"Why, because we had it for dinner when the poor laddie left us."

"Deary me!" exclaimed Jane, her voice full of alarm. "There's no
tidings of any harm come to he, surely!"

"No, no, Jane, my woman,"