, as we
have seen, had made a deep impression on his sympathetic heart. When,
however, he found that the widow was young, cheery, and good-looking,
his sympathy was naturally increased, and the feeling was not
unnaturally intensified when he found her engaged in the management of
so excellent an institution as the "Holly Tree Public House without
Drink." At first O'Rook confined his visits to pure sympathy; then,
when he had allowed a "raisonable" time to elapse, he made somewhat
warmer approaches, and finally laid siege to the widow's heart. But the
widow was obdurate.

"Why won't ye have me, now?" asked the poor man one evening, with a
perplexed look; "sure it's not bad-lookin' I am, though I've no occasion
to boast of gud looks neither."

"No, it's not your looks," said Mrs Bancroft with a laugh, as she
raised her eyes from her knitting and looked at her sister Flo, who sat
opposite, also knitting, and who took a smiling but comparatively
indifferent view of the matter.

"Then it must be because I'm not owld enough. Sure if ye wait a year or
two I'll be as owld as yourself, every bit," said O'Rook.

"No, it's not that either," said the widow.

"Ah, then, it can't be because I'm poor," persisted O'Rook, "for with
this good business you don't want money, an' I'm great at cookin',
besides havin' the willin' hands that can turn to a'most anything. If
ye'd seen me diggin' for goold, bad luck to it, ye'd belaive what I tell
ye. Ah!" he added with a sigh, "it's a rich man I'd have been this day
if that ship had only kep' afloat a few hours longer. Well, well, I
needn't grumble, when me own comrades, that thought it so safe in the
Blankow Bank, are about as badly off as me. When was it they began to
suspec' the bank was shaky?"

"Oh, long ago," said Mrs Bancroft, "soon after the disappearance of Mr
Luke, the cashier--"

"Mr who?" demanded O'Rook with a start.

"Mr Luke. Did you know him?"

"I've heard of such a man," replied O'Rook with assumed carelessness;
"what about _him_?"

"Well, it was supposed that he was goin' deranged, poor fellow, and at
last he suddenly disappeared, no one could tell why; but it's clear
enough now, for he was made to put the accounts all wrong, and I suppose
the struggle in his mind drove him to suicide, for he was a long, thin,
weakly sort of man, without much brains except for figures."

Hereupon O'Rook told the widow all he knew about the strange passenger
of that name