the captain's quick eye had noticed
that, on the pretty sweetheart's turning to the window to greet the young
widow with a nod and a wave of the hand, the young widow had held up to
her the needlework on which she was engaged, with a patient and pleasant
smile. So the captain said, being on his legs,--

"What might she be making now?"

"What is Margaret making, Kitty?" asked the young fisherman,--with one of
his arms apparently mislaid somewhere.

As Kitty only blushed in reply, the captain doubled himself up as far as
he could, standing, and said, with a slap of his leg,--

"In my country we should call it wedding-clothes. Fact! We should, I do
assure you."

But it seemed to strike the captain in another light too; for his laugh
was not a long one, and he added, in quite a gentle tone,--

"And it's very pretty, my dear, to see her--poor young thing, with her
fatherless child upon her bosom--giving up her thoughts to your home and
your happiness. It's very pretty, my dear, and it's very good. May your
marriage be more prosperous than hers, and be a comfort to her too. May
the blessed sun see you all happy together, in possession of the good
name, long after I have done ploughing the great salt field that is never
sown!"

Kitty answered very earnestly, "O! Thank you, sir, with all my heart!"
And, in her loving little way, kissed her hand to him, and possibly by
implication to the young fisherman, too, as the latter held the parlour-
door open for the captain to pass out.

CHAPTER II--THE MONEY

"The stairs are very narrow, sir," said Alfred Raybrock to Captain
Jorgan.

"Like my cabin-stairs," returned the captain, "on many a voyage."

"And they are rather inconvenient for the head."

"If my head can't take care of itself by this time, after all the
knocking about the world it has had," replied the captain, as
unconcernedly as if he had no connection with it, "it's not worth looking
after."

Thus they came into the young fisherman's bedroom, which was as perfectly
neat and clean as the shop and parlour below; though it was but a little
place, with a sliding window, and a phrenological ceiling expressive of
all the peculiarities of the house-roof. Here the captain sat down on
the foot of the bed, and glancing at a dreadful libel on Kitty which
ornamented the wall,--the production of some wandering limner, whom the
captain secretly admired as having studied portraiture from the figure-
heads