e skill and the likelihood of her making a good
stepmother to David.

Probably, if events had taken their usual course, he would have
married Halla; but at the beginning of the summer this thing
happened: a fine private yacht was brought into harbor with her
sails torn to rags and her mainmast injured. Coming down from the
north, she had been followed and caught by a storm, and was in
considerable distress when she was found by some Lerwick
fisher-smacks. Then, as Liot Borson was the best sailmaker in the
town, he was hired to put the yacht's canvas in good condition;
and while doing so the captain of the yacht, who was also her
owner, talked often with him about the different countries he had
visited. He showed him paintings of famous places and many
illustrated volumes of travel, and so fired Liot's heart that his
imagination, like a bird, flew off in all directions.

In a short time the damaged wayfarer, with all her new sails set,
went southward, and people generally forgot her visit. But Liot
was no more the same man after it. He lived between the leaves of a
splendid book of voyages which had been left with him. Halla went
out of his thoughts and plans, and all his desires were set to one
distinct purpose--to see the world, and the whole world. David was
the one obstacle. He did not wish to leave him in Shetland, for
his intention was to bid farewell forever to the island. It had
suddenly become a prison to him; he longed to escape from it. So,
then, David must be taken away or the boy would draw him back; but
the question was, where should he carry the child?

He thought instantly of his sister, who was married to a man in
comfortable circumstances living at Stornoway, in the Outer
Hebrides, and he resolved to take David to her. He could now afford
to pay well for his board and schooling, and he was such a firm
believer in the tie of blood-kinship that the possibility of the
child not being kindly treated never entered his mind. And as he was
thinking over the matter a man came from Stornoway to the Shetland
fishing, and spoke well of his sister Lizzie and her husband. He
said also that their only child was in the Greenland whaling-fleet,
and that David would be a godsend of love to their solitary hearts.

This report satisfied Liot, and the rest was easily managed. Paul
Borson urged him to stay until the summer fishing was over; but
Liot was possessed by the sole idea of getting away, and he would
listen t