ing; "no, I niver heern on her."

"Hm; thought pr'aps ye might--good-night."

"Good-noight."

And the man went his way.

"Ah! Billy, my heart misgives me, boy," said Gaff after a pause.

It was evident that Billy's heart misgave him too, for he made no reply.

The distance to Cove being only three miles, they were not long in
reaching the cottage, although their pace had become slower and slower
as they approached the village, and they stopped altogether when they
first came in sight of their old home.

A light shone brightly in the little window. They glanced at each other
on observing this, but no word escaped them. Silently they approached
the cottage-window and looked in.

Gaff started back with a slight exclamation of surprise, for his eye
fell on the new and strange furniture of the "boodwar." Billy looked
round with a searching eye.

"There's nobody in," he said at length, "but look, daddy, the old
clock's there yet."

Gaff did not know whether this was a good or a bad omen, for any one who
had taken and refurnished the cottage might have bought the old clock
and kept it as a sort of curiosity.

While they were gazing, the door of the closet opened and Mrs Gaff came
out. She was a little stouter, perhaps, than she had been five years
before, but not a whit less hale or good-looking.

"Mother--God bless her!" murmured Billy in a deep earnest voice.

"Where can Tottie be?" whispered Gaff anxiously.

"Maybe she's out," said Billy.

The lad's voice trembled while he spoke, for he could not but reflect
that five years was a long long time, and Tottie might be dead.

Before Gaff spoke again, the closet door once more opened, and a slender
sprightly girl just budding into womanhood tripped across the room.

"Hallo!" exclaimed Billy, "who can that--surely! impossible! yes it is,
it _must_ be Tot, for I could never mistake her mouth!"

"D'ye see any sign of--of--a man?" said Gaff in a voice so deep and
peculiar, that his son turned and looked at him in surprise.

"No, daddy--why? what d'ye ask that for?"

"'Cause it's not the first time a sailor has comed home, after bein'
many years away, and found that his wife had guv him up for dead, an'
married again."

Gaff had often thought of the possibility of such a thing during his
prolonged residence on the island, and the thought had cost him many a
bitter pang, but he had never mentioned it to Billy, on whom the idea
fell for the first time lik