Mrs. Kinraid’s face fell a little, partly from her own real disappointment, partly out of sympathy with the hopeless, indifferent tone of Sylvia’s replies.

’Mrs. Dawson told me he had gone away rather suddenly a year ago, but I thought he might be come home by now.  I am expecting the captain early next month.  Oh! how I should have liked to see Mr. Hepburn, and to thank him for saving the captain’s life!’

‘What do yo’ mean?’ asked Sylvia, stirred out of all assumed indifference.  ‘The captain! is that’ (not ‘Charley’, she could not use that familiar name to the pretty young wife before her) ’yo’r husband?’

’Yes, you knew him, didn’t you? when he used to be staying with Mr Corney, his uncle?’

‘Yes, I knew him; but I don’t understand.  Will yo’ please to tell me all about it, ma’am?’ said Sylvia, faintly.

’I thought your husband would have told you all about it; I hardly know where to begin.  You know my husband is a sailor?’

Sylvia nodded assent, listening greedily, her heart beating thick all the time.

’And he’s now a Commander in the Royal Navy, all earned by his own bravery!  Oh!  I am so proud of him!’

So could Sylvia have been if she had been his wife; as it was, she thought how often she had felt sure that he would be a great man some day.

‘And he has been at the siege of Acre.’

Sylvia looked perplexed at these strange words, and Mrs. Kinraid caught the look.

’St Jean d’Acre, you know—­though it’s fine saying “you know”, when I didn’t know a bit about it myself till the captain’s ship was ordered there, though I was the head girl at Miss Dobbin’s in the geography class—­Acre is a seaport town, not far from Jaffa, which is the modern name for Joppa, where St Paul went to long ago; you’ve read of that, I’m sure, and Mount Carmel, where the prophet Elijah was once, all in Palestine, you know, only the Turks have got it now?’

‘But I don’t understand yet,’ said Sylvia, plaintively; ’I daresay it’s all very true about St Paul, but please, ma’am, will yo’ tell me about yo’r husband and mine—­have they met again?’

‘Yes, at Acre, I tell you,’ said Mrs. Kinraid, with pretty petulance.  ’The Turks held the town, and the French wanted to take it; and we, that is the British Fleet, wouldn’t let them.  So Sir Sidney Smith, a commodore and a great friend of the captain’s, landed in order to fight the French; and the captain and many of the sailors landed with him; and it was burning hot; and the poor captain was wounded, and lay a-dying of pain and thirst within the enemy’s—­that is the French—­fire; so that they were ready to shoot any one of his own side who came near him.  They thought he was dead himself, you see, as he was very near; and would have been too, if your husband had not come out of shelter, and taken him up in his arms or on his back (I couldn’t make out which), and carried him safe within the walls.’