r head--a nod which signified
that she should have a voice on that point. However, seeing that in her
husband's present mood it was better to say no more, she resumed her
work.

While this conversation had been proceeding, Jack Stilwell, who had fled
hastily when surprised by the mayor as he was talking to his daughter at
the back gate of the garden, had made his way down to the wharves, and
there, seating himself upon a pile of wood, had stared moodily at the
tract of mud extending from his feet to the strip of water far away.
His position was indeed an unenviable one. As Mrs. Anthony had said,
his father was a clergyman of the Church of England, the vicar of a
snug living in Lincolnshire, but he had been cast out when the
Parliamentarians gained the upper hand, and his living was handed over
to a Sectarian preacher. When, after years of poverty, King Charles came
to the throne, the dispossessed minister thought that as a matter of
course he should be restored to his living; but it was not so. As in
hundreds of other cases the new occupant conformed at once to the new
laws, and the Rev. Thomas Stilwell, having no friends or interest, was,
like many another clergyman, left out in the cold.

But by this time he had settled at Oxford--at which university he
had been educated--and was gaining a not uncomfortable livelihood
by teaching the sons of citizens. Late in life he married Margaret
Ullathorpe, who, still a young woman, had, during a visit to some
friends at Oxford, made his acquaintance. In spite of the disparity of
years the union was a happy one. One son was born to them, and all had
gone well until a sudden chill had been the cause of Mr. Stilwell's
death, his wife surviving him only one year. Her death took place at
Southampton, where she had moved after the loss of her husband, having
no further tie at Oxford, and a week later Jack Stilwell found himself
domiciled at the house of Mr. Anthony.

It was in vain that he represented to the cloth merchant that his wishes
lay toward a seafaring life, and that although his father had wished him
to go into the ministry, he had given way to his entreaties. Mr. Anthony
sharply pooh poohed the idea, and insisted that it was nothing short
of madness to dream of such a thing when so excellent an opportunity of
learning a respectable business was open to him.

At any other time Jack would have resisted stoutly, and would have run
away and taken his chance rather than agre