he skipper. "I've been a fool. I've made
myself a laughing-stock all round, but if I could have it all over again
I would."

"That can never be," said the girl, shaking her head. "Bert wouldn't
come."

"No, of course not," asserted the other.

The girl bit her lip. The skipper thought that he had never seen her
eyes so large and shining. There was a long silence.

"Good-by," said the girl at last, rising.

The skipper rose to follow. "Good-by," he said, slowly; "and I wish you
both every happiness."

[Illustration: I wish you both every happiness 064]

"Happiness?" echoed the girl, in a surprised voice. "Why?"

"When you are married."

"I am not going to be married," said the girl, "I told Bert so this
afternoon. Good-by."

The skipper actually let her get nearly to the top of the ladder before
he regained his presence of mind. Then, in obedience to a powerful tug
at the hem of her skirt, she came down again, and accompanied him meekly
back to the cabin.

HIS LORDSHIP

[Illustration: His Lordship 066]

FARMER ROSE sat in his porch smoking an evening pipe. By his side, in a
comfortable Windsor chair, sat his friend the miller, also smoking, and
gazing with half-closed eyes at the landscape as he listened for the
thousandth time to his host's complaints about his daughter.

"The long and the short of it is, Cray," said the farmer, with an air of
mournful pride, "she's far too good-looking."

Mr. Cray grunted.

"Truth is truth, though she's my daughter," continued Mr. Rose, vaguely.
"She's too good-looking. Sometimes when I've taken her up to market
I've seen the folks fair turn their backs on the cattle and stare at her
instead."

Mr. Cray sniffed; louder, perhaps, than he had intended. "Beautiful that
rose-bush smells," he remarked, as his friend turned and eyed him.

"What is the consequence?" demanded the farmer, relaxing his gaze. "She
looks in the glass and sees herself, and then she gets miserable and
uppish because there ain't nobody in these parts good enough for her to
marry."

"It's a extraordinary thing to me where she gets them good looks from,"
said the miller, deliberately.

"Ah!" said Mr. Rose, and sat trying to think of a means of enlightening
his friend without undue loss of modesty.

"She ain't a bit like her poor mother," mused Mr. Cray.

"No, she don't get her looks from her," assented the other.

"It's one o' them things you can't account for," said Mr. Cray, who w