hat. Up I rose
and stretched out my hands to her, but she still stood there, and I saw
her cheeks were flushed and her eyes shy and tender. So once more we
stood upon the old water-stairs, she on the top stair, I on the lower;
and again I saw the little foot beneath her skirt come slowly towards
me and hesitate.

"Dick," she said, "you know that Aunt Agatha has cut me
off--disinherited me altogether--you have had time to think it all
over?"

"Yes."

"And you are quite--quite sure?"

"Quite! I think I have been so all my life."

"I'm penniless now, Dick, a beggar, with nothing in the world but the
clothes I wear."

"Yes," I said, catching her hands in mine, "my beggar-maid; the
loveliest, noblest, sweetest that ever stooped to bestow her love on
man.

"Dick, how glorious everything is this morning--the earth, the sky, and
the river!"

"It is our wedding morning!" said I.

"Our wedding day," she repeated in a whisper.

"And there never was just such a morning as this," said I.

"But, Dick, all days cannot be as this--there must come clouds and
storm sometimes, and--and--O Dick! are you sure that you will never,
never regret--"

"I love you, Lisbeth, in the shadow as well as the sunshine--love you
ever and always." And so, the little foot hesitating no longer,
Lisbeth came down to me.

Oh, never again could there be such another morning as this!

"Ahoy!"

I looked round with a start, and there, his cap cocked rakishly over
one eye, his "murderous cutlass" at his hip and his arms folded across
his chest, stood "Scarlet Sam, the Terror of the South Seas."

"Imp!" cried Lisbeth.

"Avast!" cried he in lusty tones; "whereaway?"

I glanced helplessly at Lisbeth and she at me.

"Whereaway, shipmate?" he bellowed in nautical fashion, but before I
could find a suitable answer Dorothy made her appearance with the
fluffy kitten "Louise" cuddled under her arm as usual.

"How do you do?" she said demurely; "it's awfully nice to get up so
early, isn't it? We heard auntie creeping about on tippity-toes, you
know, so we came, too. Reginald said she was pretending to be
burglars, but I think she's going 'paddling.' Are you, auntie?"

"No, dear; not this morning," answered Lisbeth, shaking her head.

"Then you are going for a row in Uncle Dick's boat. How fine!"

"An' you'll take us with you, won't you, Uncle Dick?" cried the Imp
eagerly. "We'll be pirates. I'll be 'Scarlet Sam,' an' you can be
'Ti