dy
returned home she had made a partial recovery, but was clearly incapable
of further work. She left in a cab to accept a home with a niece,
leaving the captain confronted with a problem which he had seen growing
for some time past.

"I can't make up my mind what to do with you," he observed, regarding his
son.

"I'm very comfortable," was the reply.

"You're too comfortable," said his father.

"You're running wild. It's just as well poor old Martha has gone; it has
brought things to a head."

"We could have somebody else," suggested his son.

The captain shook his head. "I'll give up the house and send you to
London to your Aunt Mary," he said, slowly; "she doesn't know you, and
once I'm at sea and the house given up, she won't be able to send you
back."

Master Hardy, who was much averse to leaving Sunwich and had heard
accounts of the lady in question which referred principally to her
strength of mind, made tender inquiries concerning his father's comfort
while ashore.

"I'll take rooms," was the reply, "and I shall spend as much time as I
can with you in London. You want looking after, my son; I've heard all
about you."

His son, without inquiring as to the nature of the information, denied it
at once upon principle; he also alluded darkly to his education, and
shook his head over the effects of a change at such a critical period of
his existence.

"And you talk too much for your age," was his father's comment when he
had finished. "A year or two with your aunt ought to make a nice boy of
you; there's plenty of room for improvement."

He put his plans in hand at once, and a week before he sailed again had
disposed of the house. Some of the furniture he kept for himself; but
the bulk of it went to his sister as conscience-money.

Master Hardy, in very low spirits, watched it taken away. Big men in
hob-nailed boots ran noisily up the bare stairs, and came down slowly,
steering large pieces of furniture through narrow passages, and using
much vain repetition when they found their hands acting as fenders. The
wardrobe, a piece of furniture which had been built for larger premises,
was a particularly hard nut to crack, but they succeeded at last--in
three places.

[Illustration: "A particularly hard nut to crack."]

A few of his intimates came down to see the last of him, and Miss Nugent,
who in some feminine fashion regarded the move as a triumph for her
family, passed by several times. It