“No, Eve,” said David, “if she won’t give me herself, I’ll never take her ship.  I’d die a foretopman sooner;” and, with these parting words, he renewed all his sister’s anxiety.  She sat down sorrowfully, and the horrible idea gained on her that there was mania in David’s love for Lucy.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

DAVID had one advantage over others that were now hunting Lucy.  Mrs. Wilson had unwittingly given him pretty plain directions how to find her farmhouse; and as Eve, in the exercise of her discretion, or indiscretion, had shown David Lucy’s letter, he had only to ride to Harrowden and inquire.  But, on the other hand, his competitors were a few miles nearer the game, and had a day’s start.

David got a horse and galloped to Harrowden, fed him at the inn, and asked where Mrs. Wilson’s farm was.  The waiter, a female, did not know, but would inquire.  Meantime David asked for two sheets of paper, and wrote a few lines on each; then folded them both (in those days envelopes were not), but did not seal them.  Mrs. Wilson’s farm turned out to be only two miles from Harrowden, and the road easy to find.  He was soon there; gave his horse to one of the farm-boys, and went into the kitchen and asked if Miss Fountain lived there.  This question threw him into the hands of Jenny, who invited him to follow her, and, unlike your powdered and noiseless lackey, pounded the door with her fist, kicked it open with her foot, and announced him with that thunderbolt of language which fell so inopportunely on Lucy’s self-congratulations.

The look Mrs. Wilson cast on Lucy was droll enough; but when David’s square shoulders and handsome face filled up the doorway, a second look followed that spoke folios.

Lucy rose, and with heightened color, but admirable self-possession, welcomed David like a valued friend.

Mrs. Wilson’s greeting was broad and hearty; and, very soon after she had made him sit down, she bounced up, crying:  “You will stay dinner now you be come, and I must see as they don’t starve you.”  So saying, out she went; but, looking back at the door, was transfixed by an arrow of reproach from her nursling’s eye.

Lucy’s reception of David, kind as it was, was not encouraging to one coming on David’s errand, for there was the wrong shade of amity in it.

In times past it would have cooled David with misgivings, but now he did not give himself time to be discouraged; he came to make a last desperate effort, and he made it at once.

“Miss Lucy, I have got the Rajah, thanks to you.”

“Thanks to me, Mr. Dodd?  Thanks to your own high character and merit.”

“No, Miss Lucy, you know better, and I know better, and there is your own sweet handwriting to prove it.”

“Miss Dodd has showed you my letter?”

“How could she help it?”

“What a pity! how injudicious!”