s
second sister, and the stony philosophy of her impenetrable mother. I
remembered the eldest daughter, a brilliant beauty, whose career might
have brushed the skirts of actual royalty, and whose mysterious
renouncement of every triumph and joy possible to woman (one would
suppose) and sudden conversion and retirement to a Roman Catholic
order convulsed Boston for a long nine days and broke Madam Bradley's
heart so that she never smiled again--and never, it was whispered,
forgave the God who had allowed such a shipwreck. That she loved
Roger, I must believe; that she was proud of him and looked upon him
with a sort of stern, fanatical loyalty as the head of her family, I
knew. But I could not see her adopting, or even tolerating, Margarita
with the unknown name. No, it wouldn't do. And I told Tip so very
decidedly.

"But if you wanted to take her to my mother, Roger," I ventured,
seeing, in fancy, the dear woman cooing over Roger's mysterious,
romantic beauty (she adored him and would, moreover, have adopted a
chambermaid if I had begged her to), "it could be arranged, I
know...."

"Thank you, Jerry," he interrupted shortly, "but it must be now. I
can't have anything happen. Any slip----" I saw his hands clench, and
I knew why. Whether Tip knew, I couldn't tell; he never indicated it,
then or ever after, good fellow. But he wasn't a fool. "_Melez-vous de
c'qui vous regarde!_" as we used to say at Vevay, and Tip minded his
business well.

"That's all right," he said quickly, "I only thought I'd mention it.
How about the license in this state?"

They talked a little in low tones, and I looked at Margarita and
thought of the odd chances of life, and how we are hurried past this
and that and stranded on the other, and skim the rapids sometimes, to
be wrecked later in clear shallows, perhaps.

"If you are ready, then?" said Tip, and we all moved across the beach
and found ourselves standing on a great, smooth rock that would be cut
off in a full high tide, with Caliban, clean and quiet and
pathetically attentive, behind us, and with him a curiously familiar
stranger, very neatly dressed, with tired eyes. As we grouped
ourselves there and Tip pulled a tiny book from his pocket I
recollected this stranger's face--it was the telegraph operator!
Roger, who forgot nothing, had brought him over for the other witness.

"Dearly beloved," said Tip in a clear, deep voice, and I woke with a
start and realised that old Roger wa