morning to make
a visit to some friends at the old Ranch. I didn't want to go. I like
it much better here."

"But you cannot bury yourself here forever, Miss Nott," said Renshaw
with a sudden burst of honest enthusiasm. "Sooner or later you will be
forced to go where you will be properly appreciated, where you will be
admired and courted, where your slightest wish will be law. Believe
me, without flattery, you don't know your own power."

"It doesn't seem strong enough to keep even the little I like here,"
said Rosey with a slight glistening of the eyes. "But," she added
hastily, "you don't know how much the dear old ship is to me. It's the
only home I think I ever had."

"But the Ranch?" said Renshaw.

"The Ranch seemed to be only the old wagon halted in the road. It was
a very little improvement on outdoors," said Rosey with a little
shiver. "But this is so cozy and snug and yet so strange and foreign.
Do you know I think I began to understand why I like it so since you
taught me so much about ships and voyages. Before that I only learned
from books. Books deceive you, I think, more than people do. Don't
you think so?"

She evidently did not notice the quick flush that covered his cheeks
and apparently dazzled his troubled eyelid for she went on
confidentially.

"I was thinking of you yesterday. I was sitting by the galley door,
looking forward. You remember the first day I saw you when you
startled me by coming up out of the hatch?"

"I wish you wouldn't think of that," said Renshaw, with more
earnestness than he would have made apparent.

"I don't want to either," said Rosey, gravely, "for I've had a strange
fancy about it. I saw once when I was younger, a picture in a print
shop in Montgomery Street that haunted me. I think it was called 'The
Pirate.' There was a number of wicked-looking sailors lying around the
deck, and coming out of a hatch was one figure with his hands on the
deck and a cutlass in his mouth."

"Thank you," said Renshaw.

"You don't understand. He was horrid-looking, not at all like you. I
never thought of HIM when I first saw you; but the other day I thought
how dreadful it would have been if some one like him and not like you
had come up then. That made me nervous sometimes of being alone. I
think father is too. He often goes about stealthily at night, as if he
was watching for something."

Renshaw's face grew suddenly dark. Could it be possible that Sleight