on his knees, hotly and wildly at
work, when Midwinter looked in on him; and was fast reducing the neat
little world of the cabin to its original elements of chaos, with a
misdirected energy wonderful to see.

"Here's a mess!" said Allan, rising composedly on the horizon of his own
accumulated litter. "Do you know, my dear fellow, I begin to wish I had
let well alone!"

Midwinter smiled, and came to his friend's assistance with the natural
neat-handedness of a sailor.

The first object that he encountered was Allan's dressing-case, turned
upside down, with half the contents scattered on the floor, and with
a duster and a hearth-broom lying among them. Replacing the various
objects which formed the furniture of the dressing-case one by
one, Midwinter lighted unexpectedly on a miniature portrait, of the
old-fashioned oval form, primly framed in a setting of small diamonds.

"You don't seem to set much value on this," he said. "What is it?"

Allan bent over him, and looked at the miniature. "It belonged to my
mother," he answered; "and I set the greatest value on it. It is a
portrait of my father."

Midwinter put the miniature abruptly, into Allan's hands, and withdrew
to the opposite side of the cabin.

"You know best where the things ought to be put in your own
dressing-case," he said, keeping his back turned on Allan. "I'll make
the place tidy on this side of the cabin, and you shall make the place
tidy on the other."

He began setting in order the litter scattered about him on the cabin
table and on the floor. But it seemed as if fate had decided that his
friend's personal possessions should fall into his hands that morning,
employ them where he might. One among the first objects which he took
up was Allan's tobacco jar, with the stopper missing, and with a letter
(which appeared by the bulk of it to contain inclosures) crumpled into
the mouth of the jar in the stopper's place.

"Did you know that you had put this here?" he asked. "Is the letter of
any importance?"

Allan recognized it instantly. It was the first of the little series of
letters which had followed the cruising party to the Isle of Man--the
letter which young Armadale had briefly referred to as bringing him
"more worries from those everlasting lawyers," and had then dismissed
from further notice as recklessly as usual.

"This is what comes of being particularly careful," said Allan; "here is
an instance of my extreme thoughtfulness. You may