he would at once have guessed
that I had been serving on board a privateer, and I knew that many
officers did not at all like the calling. I therefore said, "I beg
pardon, sir, but I fear that I am taking you out of your way."

"Not in the least, young man," he answered in a good-natured tone.
"Your way is my way."

"Well, you are indeed a very civil, kind gentleman," I thought. Then
all of a sudden I remembered the land-sharks I had been warned against,
but when I looked in his face I felt certain that he was not one of
them.

"And so you have heard speak of Tom Kelson," said he, looking at me.

"Not much, sir," I answered. "There's a lady down at Plymouth whom I
know, Miss Rundle, who just spoke about him, and told me about my aunt's
marriage, and how she didn't quite think--"

"Oh, never mind what Miss Molly Rundle thought," said he, laughing, as
he pushed open the door of a house and walked in. "You'll find Mrs
Kelson in there," and he pointed to a parlour on one side of the
passage. "Here, Bretta, come down; here's a young man come to see you.
Who he is I don't know. He's a friend of Molly Rundle's, that is all I
can make out," I heard my new friend hail at the foot of the stairs.

I found myself in a very pretty, neat little sitting-room, with the
picture of a ship over the mantelpiece, and lumps of coral and large
shells, and shell flowers, on it, and bows and arrows, and spears and
models of eastern craft, and canoes from the Pacific, and some stuffed
birds and snakes, and, indeed, all sorts of curious things arranged in
brackets on the walls, or nailed up against them, or filling the shelves
of cabinets. Indeed, the room was a perfect museum, only much better
arranged than museums generally are. I had some little time to look
about me. "Well, Aunt Bretta is comfortably housed at all events," I
thought to myself.

At last the door opened, and a portly fair dame, with fair hair and a
pleasant smile on her countenance, entered the room. "Who are you
inquiring for, young man?" said she, dropping a sort of curtsey.

I looked at her very hard without answering. "Yes, it must be Aunt
Bretta," I thought. "But if it is her, she is a good deal changed. And
yet I don't know. Those kind eyes and that smile are just the same.
Oh, yes, it is her."

"Aunt Bretta," I exclaimed, running towards her; "don't you know me?
I'm Willand Wetherholm, your nephew!"

"You my nephew! I heard that without doubt