fit for gentlemen.  Oh, he said, he’d been used to roughing it,—­woodsing, camping and gunning and yachting, ever since he’d been a free man.  He was Canadian, and had been cruising from the St. Lawrence to Florida, —­and now, as his companions would go on without him, he had a mind to try a bit of coast-life.  And could he board here? or was there any handy place?  And father said, there was Dan,—­Dan Devereux, a man that hadn’t his match at oar or helm.  And Mr. Gabriel turned his keen eye and bowed again,—­and couldn’t Dan take Mr. Gabriel?  And before Dan could answer, for he’d referred it to Faith, Mr. Gabriel had forgotten all about it, and was humming a little French song and stirring the coals with the tongs.  And that put father off in a fresh remembrance; and as the hours lengthened, the stories grew fearful, and he told them deep into the midnight, till at last Mr. Gabriel stood up.

“No more, good friend,” said he.  “But I will have a taste of this life perilous.  And now where is it that I go?”

Dan also stood up.

“My little woman,” said he, glancing at Faith, “thinks there’s a corner for you, Sir.”

“I beg your pardon”—­And Mr. Gabriel paused, with a shadow skimming over his clear dark face.

Dan wondered what he was begging pardon for, but thought perhaps he hadn’t heard him, so he repeated,—­

“My wife”—­nodding over his shoulder at Faith, “she’s my wife—­thinks there’s a”——­

“She’s your wife?” said Mr. Gabriel, his eyes opening and brightening the way an aurora runs up the sky, and looking first at one and then at the other, as if he couldn’t understand how so delicate a flower grew on so thorny a stem.

The red flushed up Dan’s face,—­and up mine too, for the matter of that,—­but in a minute the stranger had dropped his glance.

“And why did you not tell me,” he said, “that I might have found her less beautiful?”

Then he raised his shoulders, gave her a saucy bow, with his hand on Dan’s arm,—­Dan, who was now too well pleased at having Faith made happy by a compliment to sift it,—­and they went out.

But I was angry enough; and you may imagine I wasn’t much soothed by seeing Faith, who’d been so die-away all the evening, sitting up before my scrap of looking-glass, trying in my old coral earrings, bowing up my ribbons, and plaiting and prinking till the clock frightened her into bed.

The next morning, mother, who wasn’t used to such disturbance, was ill, and I was kept pretty busy tending on her for two or three days.  Faith had insisted on going home the first thing after breakfast, and in that time I heard no more of anybody,—­for father was out with the night-tides, and, except to ask how mother did, and if I’d seen the stray from the Lobblelyese again, was too tired for talking when he came back.  That had been—­let me see—­on a Monday, I think,—­yes, on a Monday; and Thursday evening, as in-doors had