was down and away with her at his heels.

A minute later they were in the ferry boat and off to Dartmouth. The tide
was just on the turn and helped 'em.

They heard Polly screaming the top of her head off one side the river;
while a muffled noise, like a bull-frog croaking, came from the ferry
steps at Green way.

"The owls are making a funny noise to-night sure enough!" said the skipper
of _The Provider_.

But Ted was busy. He'd forgot nothing, and now pulled a lot of food out of
his pocket for the starving woman.

"Eat and say nought," he ordered, and then he took an oar and helped his
friend.

Before dawn the schooner was hull down on her way to the Islands, and folk
at Dartmouth stared to see the Dittisham ferry boat adrift in the harbour;
but presently there came Jimmy Fox calling on all the law and the prophets
for vengeance; and then the nation heard about his troubles and the
terrible adventure that had overtook the poor man and his wife. But both
were tolerably well known up and down the river, and I didn't hear that
anybody went out of the way to show sympathy.

In fact, when the story leaked out, which it did do next time _The
Provider_ was over, most people agreed with Edmund Masters that he'd done
very clever.

Christie was married to Ted at St. Heliers when he came back to her after
the next voyage, and Fox and his good lady got wind of it, of course; but
'tis generally allowed they didn't send her no wedding present.

Somebody did, however, for when William Bassett heard how things had
fallen out, his romantical character came to his aid, and, such are the
vagaries of human nature, that he sent Mrs. Masters a five-pound note.

"Just to show you the sort of man you might have took, my dear," he wrote
to her.

No. VI

MOTHER'S MISFORTUNE

I shall always say I did ought to have married Gregory Sweet when my
husband dropped, and nobody can accuse me of not doing my bestest to that
end. In a womanly way, knowing the man had me in his eye from the funeral
onwards, and before for that matter, I endeavoured to make it so easy for
him as I could without loss of self-respect; and he can hear me out, and
if he don't the neighbours will.

But there it was. Gregory suffered from defects of character, too prone to
show themselves in a bachelor man after the half century he turned. He
pushed caution to such extremes that you can only call ungentlemanly where
a nice woman's concerned, and I neve