y might also be improved, in the way of breaking ground with
our secret.

"Ay, you know how it is in these matters, Miles--somehow, I scarce know
why myself, but somehow I feel bloody womanish this evening."

I felt little Kitty pressing closer to my side, as if she had certain
misgivings touching her other neighbour.

"I suppose you are surprised, Miss Kitty," I resumed, "at finding two
strangers in your grandmother's chaise?"

"I did not expect it--but--you said you had been to Mr. Van Tassel's, and
that there was good news for me--does 'Squire Van Tassel allow that
grandfather paid him the money?"

"Not that exactly, but you have friends who will see that no wrong shall
be done you. I suppose you have been afraid your grandmother and yourself
might be turned away from the old place?"

"'Squire Van Tassel's daughters have boasted as much,"--answered Kitty, in
a very subdued tone--a voice, indeed, that grew lower and more tremulous
as she proceeded--"but I don't much mind _them_, for they think their
father is to own the whole country one of these days." This was uttered
with spirit. "But the old house was built by grandmother's grandfather,
they say, and grandmother was born in it, and mother was born in it, and
so was I. It is hard to leave a place like that, sir, and for a debt, too,
that grandmother says she is sure has once been paid."

"Ay, bloody hard!" growled Marble.

Kitty again pressed nearer to me, or, to speak more properly, farther from
the mate, whose countenance was particularity grim just at that moment.

"All that you say is very true, Kitty," I replied; "but Providence has
sent you friends to take care that no wrong shall be done your
grandmother, or yourself."

"You're right enough in that, Miles," put in the mate. "God bless the old
lady; she shall never sleep out of the house, with my consent, unless it
is when she sails down the river to go to the theatre, and the museum, the
ten or fifteen Dutch churches there are in town, and all them 'ere sort o'
thingumerees."

Kitty gazed at her left-hand neighbour with surprise, but I could feel
that maiden bashfulness induced her to press less closely to my side than
she had done the minute before.

"I don't understand you," Kitty answered, after a short pause, during
which she was doubtless endeavouring to comprehend what she had heard.
"Grandmother has no wish to go to town; she only wants to pass the rest of
her days, quietly, at the old p