about noon. She was lying dead, and on her
breast they found a miniature portrait of a handsome and dark-looking
young man. She had worn her sweetheart's likeness for fifty years.

THE COASTGUARD.

Winter and summer, every night about six o'clock, a tall man, dressed in
blue, strode over the moor. Sometimes he looked on the ground for a long
time together, and seemed to be buried in deep thought. When he came to
the stream he always found another man waiting for him on the far side,
and this man was accompanied by a rough water-spaniel. The two friends,
who were both coastguards, held a little chat, and then the dog was told
to go over for the letters. The spaniel swam across, received the blue
despatches, and carried them to his master; then, with a cheery
good-night, the men turned back and went across the dark moor to their
homes.

In the morning the tall coastguard was astir very early. He walked along
the rock tops with his old telescope under his arm, and looked acutely
at the vessels that crept round the bay. During the middle of the day he
had little to do. In fine weather he would sit outside his door with a
book, and in bad weather he was always to be found, from ten to four
o'clock, on the long settle beside the great fire in his little cottage.
He was one of the old school, and had entered the service at the time
when civilians were admitted, so he had the utmost contempt for the new
school of boatmen who came from on board men-of-war. He was rarely
troubled with visits from inspecting officers; in fact, after a certain
memorable occurrence, the commander of the station let him alone. A very
shrewd officer wished to show his own cleverness, and to find out his
men's weakness; so one night, when thick clouds were flying across the
moon, he crept round the bay in a six-oared cutter, ran ashore on the
sand, hauled up half a dozen empty kegs, and told his men to bury them
in the sand. This ingenious captain proceeded as he fancied smugglers
would have done, and he intended to go round to the coastguard's cottage
and inform him of the trick in the morning. Just as the casks had been
triumphantly covered, a voice called sharply, "Who goes there?"

The clever officer was thrown off his guard, and was too confused to
speak.

The challenge was repeated, and presently a couple of bullets whizzed
sharply among the party. The coastguard had emptied both his pistols,
and one of the bullets cut through the o