the sisters together.

'Last night,' said Nancy, wiping her eyes; 'and, Miss Angel, he's not
like the captain a bit now; he looks quite, quite old, and Pete and
father they a'most carried him in from the chaise; and do you know, he
can't see, he won't be able to see for ever so long, perhaps never.
And they told me not to tell you because it'd make you sadder. And
this morning he asked me about you, and I said, should I fetch you, and
he said, "No, no, you wouldn't want to see him"; but somehow I couldn't
help it, and I've come, and, Miss Angel, I'm sure if you saw him you
wouldn't be angry with him.'

'Angry!' said Angel, laying her heap of black work down on the arbour
seat, 'angry with just the one person we want to see, Godfrey's best
friend, the last person who saw him! You were quite, quite right to
come, Nancy dear. Betty, will you----'

'Come this minute? Of course I will,' said Betty, rising in her old
impulsive way. 'Cousin Crayshaw's out, but we can't wait for him, can
we, Angel?'

'No, I don't think we can,' said Angel; and in a few minutes the two
were walking down the road to the Place, with Nancy, crying still but
half-triumphant, between them.

And on the bench outside the house, in Kiah's old place, where Godfrey
had first settled to be a sailor, Captain Maitland sat, all alone and
not feeling the spring sunshine which fell about him. He hardly knew
why he had chosen that place, only just to-day he felt as if, as Nancy
said, he had grown old like Kiah, only with none of Kiah's cheery
content. His eyes were bandaged from the happy light, but he knew just
how it all looked, and he said to himself that it was only he who had
changed, not the beautiful, happy world; for he had loved the sunshine,
this merry-hearted sailor, and the joy and the beauty of the fair
earth, and the stir and the work and bustle of life, and he felt as if
it were not himself but some other man who sat here in the darkness at
the door of his old home, and as if all his hopeful courage were gone
and would never come back. The doctors had told him that he would
recover his sight with time and patience; but just now he felt as if he
couldn't look forward, only back to that moment which would be before
him all his life, the moment when the French brig went down, and he saw
his youngest midshipman jump headlong over the side of the _Mermaid_,
and knew that his pursuit of the other ship must not be stayed for the
sake of one