n Noble! He must have enjoyed
getting together these nice things; and now they are all for _us_."

"And here--_oh_, this is _too_ sad! His poor, dear shirts and things,"
sighed Phil, making further discoveries in another, smaller cabin
beyond. "Drawers full of them. Fancy his leaving them here all
winter--and they don't seem a bit damp."

I followed her into a green-and-pink cabin, a tiny den, but pretty
enough for an artist instead of an old retired sea-captain.

"What shall we do with them?" she asked. "We might keep them all to
remember him by, perhaps; only--they would be such odd sorts of
souvenirs for girls to have, and--oh, my goodness, Nell, who could have
dreamed of Captain Noble in--in whatever it is?"

Whatever it was, it was pale-blue silk, with lovely pink stripes of
several shades, and there was a jacket which Phil was just holding out
by its shoulders, to admire, when a slight cough made us turn our heads.

It is strange what individuality there can be in a cough. We would have
sworn if we'd heard it while locked up with Mr. Paasma in a dark cell,
where there was no other human being to produce it, that he couldn't
have uttered such an interesting cough.

Before we turned, we knew that there was a stranger on "Lorelei," but we
were surprised when we saw what sort of stranger he was.

He stood in the narrow doorway between the two cabins, looking at us
with bright, dark eyes, like Robert Louis Stevenson's, and dressed in
smart flannels and a tall collar, such as Robert Louis Stevenson would
never have consented to wear.

"I beg your pardon," said he, in a nice, drawling voice, which told me
that he'd first seen the light in one of the Southern States of America.

"I beg yours," said I. (Somehow Phil generally waits for me to speak
first in emergencies, though she's a year older.) "Are you looking for
any one--the caretaker of our boat, perhaps?"

His eyes traveled from me to Phil; from Phil to the blue garment to
which she still clung; from the blue garment to the pile of stiff white
shirts in an open drawer.

"No--o, I wasn't exactly looking for any one," he slowly replied. "I
just came on board to--er----"

"To _what_, if you please?" I demanded, beginning to stiffen. "I've a
right to know, because this is our boat. If you're a newspaper reporter,
or anything of that sort, please go away; but if you have business----"

"No, it was only pleasure," said the young man, his eyes like black
dia