nd that I can put my hand upon
him when required."

"Oh, Mr Evelin! what is this you say?" exclaimed Blanche eagerly.
"Have you, indeed, met with anyone in the course of your wanderings,
whose history is such that you believe him to be my dear little long-
lost cousin, Dick? I do not think you would speak heedlessly or without
due consideration upon such a subject; and if your supposition should be
correct, and you can furnish a clue to the discovery of my missing
relatives, you will give new life to my uncle, and lay us all under such
an obligation as we shall never be able to repay."

"Do not place too much confidence in the idea that it would be quite
impossible to repay even such an obligation as the one of which you
speak," said Lance in a low and meaning tone which somehow caused
Blanche's cheek to flush and her heart to flutter a little. "You are
right in supposing," he continued, "that I would not make such an
assertion without due consideration. I have thought much upon the story
you confided to me; and, comparing it with another which I have also
heard, I am of opinion that I have discovered a clue which is worth
following up, if only for the satisfaction of ascertaining whether it be
a true or a false one. If true, your poor aunt is without doubt long
since dead; but your cousin is still alive, and--there he stands!"
pointing to Bob, who was in the waist leaning musingly over the lee
rail.

"Where?" asked Blanche, looking quite bewildered.

"_There_," replied Evelin, again pointing to Bob. "If my supposition is
correct, that lad Bob is your cousin, Miss Lascelles."

"Impossible!" exclaimed Blanche. "Oh, Mr Evelin, tell me:--What has
led you to think so?"

"I will," answered Lance. "But I hope the idea is not very distressing
to you. It is true that the lad's present position is--well, not
perhaps exactly worthy of the cousin of--"

"Oh no; do not say that, Mr Evelin, I beg," interrupted Blanche. "I
was not thinking of that in the least. If Bob indeed prove to be my
cousin, I shall certainly not be ashamed of him--quite the contrary; but
you took me so completely by surprise. I have ever pictured my lost
cousin as a chubby little flaxen-haired baby boy, from always having
heard him so spoken of, I suppose; and I had forgotten for the moment
that, if alive, he must necessarily have grown into a young man. But
let me hear why you have come to think that Robert may be my cousin; I
am all curi