DEAR MR. SHELDON,—­Please forgive me for stealing the Flibberty-Gibbet.  I simply had to.  The Martha means everything to us.  Think of it, only fifty-five pounds for her, two hundred and seventy-five dollars.  If I don’t save her, I know I shall be able to pay all expenses out of her gear, which the natives will not have carried off.  And if I do save her, it is the haul of a life-time.  And if I don’t save her, I’ll fill the Emily and the Flibberty-Gibbet with recruits.  Recruits are needed right now on Berande more than anything else.

   And please, please don’t be angry with me.  You said I shouldn’t go
   recruiting on the Flibberty, and I won’t.  I’ll go on the Emily.

I bought two cows this afternoon.  That trader at Nogi died of fever, and I bought them from his partner, Sam Willis his name is, who agrees to deliver them—­most likely by the Minerva next time she is down that way.  Berande has been long enough on tinned milk.

And Dr. Welshmere has agreed to get me some orange and lime trees from the mission station at Ulava.  He will deliver them the next trip of the Apostle.  If the Sydney steamer arrives before I get back, plant the sweet corn she will bring between the young trees on the high bank of the Balesuna.  The current is eating in against that bank, and you should do something to save it.

   I have ordered some fig-trees and loquats, too, from Sydney.  Dr.
   Welshmere will bring some mango-seeds.  They are big trees and require
   plenty of room.

The Martha is registered 110 tons.  She is the biggest schooner in the Solomons, and the best.  I saw a little of her lines and guess the rest.  She will sail like a witch.  If she hasn’t filled with water, her engine will be all right.  The reason she went ashore was because it was not working.  The engineer had disconnected the feed-pipes to clean out the rust.  Poor business, unless at anchor or with plenty of sea room.

   Plant all the trees in the compound, even if you have to clean out the
   palms later on.

   And don’t plant the sweet corn all at once.  Let a few days elapse
   between plantings.

   JOAN LACKLAND.

He fingered the letter, lingering over it and scrutinizing the writing in a way that was not his wont.  How characteristic, was his thought, as he studied the boyish scrawl—­clear to read, painfully, clear, but none the less boyish.  The clearness of it reminded him of her face, of her cleanly stencilled brows, her straightly chiselled nose, the very clearness of the gaze of her eyes, the firmly yet delicately moulded lips, and the throat, neither fragile nor robust, but—­but just right, he concluded, an adequate and beautiful pillar for so shapely a burden.