ch sea about Cape Cod.

"Now, she liked it, for she's a regular sailor's mother, but I couldn't
feel that I was really a rich fellow livin' ashore until I got out of
hearin' of the ocean, and out of smellin' of salt and tar, so I made up
my mind that I'd go inland and settle somewhere on a place of my own,
where I might have command of some sort of farm.

"I didn't know just exactly what I wanted, nor just exactly where I
wanted to go, so I thought it best to look around a little and hold
council with somebody or other. I couldn't hold council with my mother,
because she wanted me to buy a ship and take command of her. And then I
thought of Captain Horn, and goin' to ask him. But the captain is a
great man--"

"Indeed he is!" exclaimed Mrs. Cliff. "We all know that!"

"But he is off on his own business," continued Burke, "and what sort of
a princely concern he's got on hand I don't know. Anyway, he wouldn't
want me followin' him about and botherin' him, and so I thought of
everybody I could, and at last it struck me that there wasn't anybody
better than you, Mrs. Cliff, to give me the points I wanted, for I
always liked you, Mrs. Cliff, and I consider you a woman of good sense
down to the keel. And, as I heard you were livin' in sort of a country
place, I thought you'd be the very person that I could come and talk to
and get points.

"I felt a hankerin', anyway, after some of the old people of the
_Castor_; for, after having had all that money divided among us, it made
me feel as if we belonged to the same family. I suppose that was one
reason why I felt a sort of drawing to you, you know. Anyway, I knew
where you lived, and I came right here, and arrived this morning. After
I'd taken a room at the hotel, I asked for your house and came straight
here."

"And very glad am I to see you, Mr. Burke!" said Mrs. Cliff, speaking
honestly from the bottom of her heart.

She had not known Burke very well, but she had always looked upon him as
a fine, manly sailor; and now that he had come to her, she was conscious
of the family feeling which he had spoken of, and she was very glad to
see him.

She saw that Burke was very anxious to know why she was living in a
plain fashion in this unpretentious house, but she found it would be
very difficult to explain the matter to him. Hers was not a
straightforward tale, which she could simply sit and tell, and,
moreover, although she liked Burke and thought it probable that he was