“Why, what is the matter?  Why, the child is ill.  Don’t gasp like that, Lucy.  Come, pluck up courage; I am sure to be on your side, you know.  What is it?”

“Uncle, you are always so kind to me; you know you are.”

“Oh, am I?  Noble old fellow!”

“Oh, don’t make me laugh! ha! ha! oh! oh! oh! ha! oh!”

“Confound it, I have sent her into hysterics; no, she is coming round.  Ten thousand million devils, has anybody been insulting the child in my house?  They have.  My wife, for a guinea.”

“No, no, no.  It is about Mr. Dodd.”

“Mr. Dodd? oho!”

“I have ruined him.”

“How have you managed that, my dear?”

Then Lucy, all in a flutter, told Mr. Bazalgette what the reader has just learned.

He looked grave.  “Lucy,” said he, “be frank with me.  Is not Mr. Dodd in love with you?”

“I will be frank with you, dear uncle, because you are frank.  Poor Mr. Dodd did love me once; but I refused him, and so his good sense and manliness cured him directly.”

“So, now that he no longer loves you, you love him; that is so like you girls.”

“Oh, no, uncle; how ridiculous!  If I loved Mr. Dodd, I could repair the cruel injuries I have done him with a single word.  I have only to recall my refusal, and he—­ But I do not love Mr. Dodd.  Esteem him I do, and he has saved my life; and is he to lose his health, and his character, and his means of honorable ambition for that?  Do you not see how shocking this is, and how galling to my pride?  Yes, uncle, I have been insulted.  His sister told me to my face it was an evil day for him when he and I first met—­that was at Uncle Fountain’s.”

“Well, and what am I to do, Lucy?”

“Dear Uncle, what I thought was, if you would be so kind as to use your influence with the Company in his favor.  Tell them that if he did miss his ship it was not by a fault, but by a noble virtue; tell them that it was to save a fellow creature’s life—­a young lady’s life—­one that did not deserve it from him, your own niece’s; tell them it is not for your honor he should be disgraced.  Oh, uncle, you know what to say so much better than I do.”

Bazalgette grinned, and straightway resolved to perpetrate a practical joke, and a very innocent one.  “Well,” said he, “the best way I can think of to meet your views will be, I think, to get him appointed to the new ship the Company is building.”

Lucy opened her eyes, and the blood rushed to her cheek.  “Oh uncle, do I hear right? a ship?  Are you so powerful? are you so kind? do you love your poor niece so well as all this?  Oh, Uncle Bazalgette!”

“There is no end to my power,” said the old man, solemnly; “no limit to my goodness, no bounds to my love for my poor niece.  Are you in a hurry, my poor niece?  Shall we have his commission down to-morrow, or wait a month?”

“To-morrow? is it possible?  Oh, yes!  I count the minutes till I say to his sister, ’There, Miss Dodd, I have friends who value me too highly to let me lie under these galling obligations.’  Dear, dear uncle, I don’t mind being under them to you, because I love you” (kisses).