“A lady!” he cried.  “Here?  Impossible!” And he looked at his clothes.

“Who cares more for your heart than your appearance,” I answered gayly, and led him into the office.

At sight of Dorothy he stopped abruptly, confounded, as a man who sees a diamond in a dust-heap.  And a glow came over me as I said: 

“Miss Manners, here is Captain Paul, to whose courage and unselfishness I owe everything.”

“Captain,” said Dorothy, graciously extending her hand, “Richard has many friends.  You have put us all in your debt, and none deeper than his old playmate.”

The captain fairly devoured her with his eyes as she made him a curtsey.  But he was never lacking in gallantry, and was as brave on such occasions as when all the dangers of the deep threatened him.  With an elaborate movement he took Miss Manners’s fingers and kissed them, and then swept the floor with a bow.

“To have such a divinity in my debt, madam, is too much happiness for one man,” he said.  “I have done nothing to merit it.  A lifetime were all too short to pay for such a favour.”

I had almost forgotten Miss Dolly the wayward, the mischievous.  But she was before me now, her eyes sparkling, and biting her lips to keep down her laughter.  Comyn turned to fleck the window with his handkerchief, while I was not a little put out at their mirth.  But if John Paul observed it, he gave no sign.

“Captain, I vow your manners are worthy of a Frenchman,” said my Lord; “and yet I am given to understand you are a Scotchman.”

A shadow crossed the captain’s face.

“I was, sir,” he said.

“You were!” exclaimed Comyn, astonished; “and pray, what are you now, sir?”

“Henceforth, my Lord,” John Paul replied with vast ceremony:  “I am an American, the compatriot of the beautiful Miss Manners!”

“One thing I’ll warrant, captain,” said his Lordship, “that you are a wit.”