; but it was just at a time when
everyone's attention was taken up by our sailing. There was some talk
of the little fellow having been left an orphan and then being so
ill-used that he ran away. Was this so, madam?"

"There is, I am sorry to say, a good deal of truth in it, for though
well-meaning, my brother was so stern and harsh that the poor little
fellow was afraid of him, and took that very foolish step. It was long
enough before I was able to trace him, and found the woman who kept the
inn from which he was taken."

"And now, madam," said the first lieutenant, "I presume that your visit
means that you have come to claim the boy?"

"Oh, yes," cried the lady, eagerly. "He is my little nephew, my dear
dead brother's child."

"Exactly; but he is quite happy and settled down with our men, and I
don't know that we should be justified in giving him up."

"You don't mean," cried the lady, indignantly, "that you would keep him
here to become a common sailor?"

"I beg your pardon, madam," said the officer, stiffly, "but I was not
aware that there was anything common about a sailor."

"Oh, I did not mean that," said the lady, flushing.

"And what is more, I feel sure that our captain would not allow our
little powder monkey--"

"Powder monkey!" cried the lady, aghast.

"Only a sailor's playful term, madam," said the lieutenant. "I say our
captain would not give up our brave little fellow to go back to a life
of ill-treatment."

"He would come back to no ill-treatment," cried the lady, with the tears
brimming in her eyes. "I love my dead brother's son. He would be with
me, as his father expressly desired in his will. My other brother would
have nothing whatever to do with him. Pray, pray let me see the little
fellow, and I can prove to you that he would be happy."

"Oh, he is no prisoner, madam," said the lieutenant. "Will you come
with me? You will find him doing duty in what we term the sick bay--the
infirmary--where are several of our wounded men."

The lady uttered a faint sob, and looking more and more troubled,
suffered herself to be led to where poor Jack Jeens, looking very white
and thin, lay back close to an open port-hole, listening to something
Phil was reading from a book.

Unseen at first, the visitor stopped short, gazing wonderingly at her
little nephew neatly rigged up in nautical style, bending over the book
he held, and evidently enjoying his task.

"Phil!" whispered the lady