strong and active as a lion, was slippery as an eel.

Going straight as an arrow to the spot where she of the golden hair
was seated, the youth presented himself suddenly to her, sat down
beside her, and exclaiming "Minnie", put his arm round her waist.

"Oh, Ruby, don't," said Minnie, blushing.

Now, reader, the "don't" and the blush had no reference to the arm
round the waist, but to the relative position of their noses, mouths,
and chins, a position which would have been highly improper and
altogether unjustifiable but for the fact that Ruby was Minnie's
accepted lover.

"Don't, darling, why not?" said Ruby in surprise.

"You're so rough," said Minnie, turning her head away.

"True, dear, I forgot to shave this morning----"

"I don't mean that," interrupted the girl quickly, "I mean rude
and--and--is that a sea-gull?"

"No, sweetest of your sex, it's a butterfly; but it's all the same,
as my metaphysical Uncle Ogilvy would undertake to prove to you,
thus, a butterfly is white and a gull is white,--therefore, a gull is
a butterfly."

"Don't talk nonsense, Ruby."

"No more I will, darling, if you will listen to me while I talk
sense."

"What is it?" said the girl, looking earnestly and somewhat anxiously
into her lover's face, for she knew at once by his expression that he
had some unpleasant communication to make. "You're not going away?"

"Well, no--not exactly; you know I promised to stay with mother; but
the fact is that I'm so pestered and hunted down by that rascally
press-gang, that I don't know what to do. They're sure to nab me at
last, too, and then I shall have to go away whether I will or no, so
I've made up my mind as a last resource, to----" Ruby paused.

"Well?" said Minnie.

"Well, in fact to do what will take me away for a short time,
but----" Ruby stopped short, and, turning his head on one side, while
a look of fierce anger overspread his face, seemed to listen
intently.

Minnie did not observe this action for a few seconds, but, wondering
why he paused, she looked up, and in surprise exclaimed--

"Ruby! what do you----"

"Hush! Minnie, and don't look round," said he in a low tone of
intense anxiety, yet remaining immovably in the position which he had
assumed on first sitting down by the girl's side, although the
swelled veins of his neck and his flushed forehead told of a fierce
conflict of feeling within.

"It's the press-gang after me again. I got a glance of one o' them