He took up the ring and looked at Clarice, but she shrunk back shuddering.

“Oh, no!—­I should feel as if it would drag me down to the bottom of the sea after the owner.”

“It’s the neatest thing I ever saw, though, Clarice.  Look, what a pearl!  You must keep it for your own, any way, if you won’t wear it.  Nobody about here is fit but you.  The poor little basket, too,—­poor little ark!”

He took it up and looked it over, much as though it were a dead bird, or some other pretty thing that once had life, and knew bow to enjoy it.

“Are you going out to-day, Luke?” asked Clarice.

“Don’t you see I’ve got the net?  Father will be down by the time I’m ready.  We are tired enough hanging about waiting for the blow to be over.”

“May-be you will see something,” said Clarice, in an undertone.  “If you could only find out about the ship, and the poor passengers!”

“May-be,” answered Luke,—­saying this to comfort her.  “Is your father going out to-day?”

“He said he would, last night.  I’m glad it came off so pleasant.  See how long this chain is!—­a great many times longer than his big watch-chain!”

“Worth fifty times as much, too.”

“Is it?” said Clarice, looking up in wonder, almost incredulous;—­but then Luke had said it.

“This is gold.  Come and walk down to the boat, Clarice.  How many times have you filled your basket this morning?  You look tired.  How did you come to wake up so soon?  I believe I heard you singing, and that was what brought me out so quick.”

“I haven’t sung any, Luke,” she answered, looking at him in wonder.

“Oh, yes!—­I’m sure I heard you.  I got up and looked out of my window; there you were.  You are the best girl around, Clarice!  Come now, why don’t you say I’m the best fellow?  Then we’ll be even.  I am, you know.  But then I want to hear you say so.”

The merry fellow was in earnest, though he laughed.  He blushed more deeply than the girl,—­indeed, she did not blush at all,—­when he thus spoke to her.  She looked at him a little surprised.

“Come,” said he, with gentle coaxing.  “I know what you think.  Speak out, and make me feel happy, all the days of my life.  If it wasn’t that you feel so about the ring—­But why shouldn’t you feel solemn about it?  It belonged to some beautiful lady, I suppose, who lies at rest in the bottom of the sea by this time. H.H.”—­he read the initials engraved on the clasp of the chain.

Clarice, who held the ring, inadvertently turned it that moment to the light so that her eyes could not fail to perceive that two letters were also written by a graver underneath the pearl.  These letters likewise were H.H. She gave the ring, to Luke, pointing to the initials.

“Yes, to be sure,” said he, examining it with his bright eyes.  “It’s the prettiest thing I ever saw.  These letters must have stood for something.  Clarice,”—­he hesitated a moment,—­“Clarice, they might stand for something yet, Heart and Hand.  Here they are,—­take them,—­they’re yours,—­my heart and my hand,—­till Death comes between!”