roop of horse."

Jacky nodded vehemently once or twice from where she stood, followed him
with her eyes as he went down the steps, anxiously, and then stood
gravely silent. She was but a lump of "woman's flesh," that was clear,
and I doubted if there was any soul inside to live it down. Her face was
red and her eyes shining with the sea-wind. She had been at the stern
with the boys, making a riot about the porpoises rolling under the boat;
in the engine-room with Teddy; had tried to drag me to the deck-railing
to watch the unsteady shimmer of some pale-blue sea-weed under the
water, which the wheel threw up in silver flashes, or to see how, before
the sun went down, we floated over almost motionless stretches of pale
tea-colored water, holding, it seemed, little curdling pools of light
far below in their depths on depths of shivering brown and dull red
mosses.

"Ach-h! I'm glad I'm alive to-night!" she had said, gritting her teeth
in her Dutch fashion.

But some new demon had possession of her brain now: she stood working
with her shawl uncertainly, a trifle pale, watching me. She came to me
at last, and stood balancing herself first on her heels and then her
toes, biting her lip as if doubtful how to begin.

"I wish we had the baby along!" came with a gruff burst, finally. "God
bless its little soul! I went out to see it on Saturday. It would do
Uncle Daniel good. He needs something fresh and hearty,
bread-and-butter-like, or a baby. You did not notice him this evening
particularly, Mrs. Manning, eh?" anxiously.

"No."

"Nothing----Well, no matter. I'm fanciful, maybe. There's an old saying
in the family about him, some Doctor's prophecy, and it makes me
over-watchful, likely."

She waited for a question. I asked none. There was a dull throb of pain
in my heart, but I thrust it down. The girl waited a few moments,
debating with herself: I could read the struggle on her face: then she
looked up straight into my eyes, her small white teeth showing
determined as a steel-trap.

"It's quiet here, Mrs. Manning, and will be for a bit, and there's a
story I'd like to tell you. It would do me good, if it were off my mind.
Perhaps you, too," with a sharp glance.

"Go on."

She put her hand into her pocket and pulled out a broken morocco case.

"Look here. This tells the whole of the story, almost,"--holding it
where the light from the cabin-window fell on it.

It was the daguerreotype of a woman: one of those fac