ded all her rest. A dull sorrow, like a half-lulled sense of pain,
was always present to her; and her pale cheek was oftener wet with tears
than the honest Captain, softly putting in his head from time to time at
the half-closed door, could have desired to see it.

The sun was getting low in the west, and, glancing out of a red mist,
pierced with its rays opposite loopholes and pieces of fretwork in the
spires of city churches, as if with golden arrows that struck through
and through them--and far away athwart the river and its flat banks,
it was gleaming like a path of fire--and out at sea it was irradiating
sails of ships--and, looked towards, from quiet churchyards, upon
hill-tops in the country, it was steeping distant prospects in a flush
and glow that seemed to mingle earth and sky together in one glorious
suffusion--when Florence, opening her heavy eyes, lay at first, looking
without interest or recognition at the unfamiliar walls around her, and
listening in the same regardless manner to the noises in the street. But
presently she started up upon her couch, gazed round with a surprised
and vacant look, and recollected all.

'My pretty,' said the Captain, knocking at the door, 'what cheer?'

'Dear friend,' cried Florence, hurrying to him, 'is it you?'

The Captain felt so much pride in the name, and was so pleased by the
gleam of pleasure in her face, when she saw him, that he kissed his
hook, by way of reply, in speechless gratification.

'What cheer, bright di'mond?' said the Captain.

'I have surely slept very long,' returned Florence. 'When did I come
here? Yesterday?'

'This here blessed day, my lady lass,' replied the Captain.

'Has there been no night? Is it still day?' asked Florence.

'Getting on for evening now, my pretty,' said the Captain, drawing back
the curtain of the window. 'See!'

Florence, with her hand upon the Captain's arm, so sorrowful and
timid, and the Captain with his rough face and burly figure, so quietly
protective of her, stood in the rosy light of the bright evening sky,
without saying a word. However strange the form of speech into which he
might have fashioned the feeling, if he had had to give it utterance,
the Captain felt, as sensibly as the most eloquent of men could have
done, that there was something in the tranquil time and in its softened
beauty that would make the wounded heart of Florence overflow; and that
it was better that such tears should have their way. S