oveliest friend--his mother. That touched her. Hitherto he had
been to her but a thing her daughter loved. Her eyes filled.

"My poor, warm-hearted, motherless boy," she said, "pray for my
husband's safe return."

So now two more bright eyes looked longingly seaward for the Agra,
homeward bound.

_II.--Richard Hardie's Villainy_

Richard Hardie was at that moment the unlikeliest man in Barkington to
decline Julia Dodd, with hard cash in five figures, for his
daughter-in-law.

The great banker stood, a colossus of wealth and stability to the eye,
though ready to crumble at a touch, and, indeed, self-doomed; for
bankruptcy was now his game. This was a miserable man, far more so than
his son, whose happiness he was thwarting; and of all things that gnawed
him, none was more bitter than to have borrowed L5,000 of his children's
trust money, and sunk it. His son's marriage would expose him; lawyers
would peer into trusts, etc.

When his son announced his attachment to a young lady living in a
suburban villa it was a terrible blow, but if Alfred had told him hard
cash in five figures could be settled by the bride's family on the young
couple, he would have welcomed the wedding with a secret gush of joy,
for he could then have thrown himself on Alfred's generosity, and been
released from that one corroding debt.

He had for months spent his days poring over the books, fabricating and
maturing a false balance-sheet. Suspecting that the cashier was watching
him, he one day handed him his dismissal, polite but peremptory, and
went on cooking his accounts with surpassing dignity. Rage supplying the
place of courage, the cashier let him know that he--poor, despised Noah
Skinner--had kept genuine books while he had been preparing false ones.

He was at the mercy of his servant, and bowed his pride to flatter
Skinner, and soon saw this was the way to make him a clerk of wax. He
became his accomplice, and on this his master told him everything it was
impossible to keep from him. At this moment Captain Dodd was announced.
Mr. Hardie explained to his new ally the danger that threatened him from
Miss Julia Dodd.

"And now," said he, "the women have sent the father to soften me. I
shall be told his girl will die if she can't have my boy."

But, instead of the heartbroken father he expected, in came the gallant
sailor, with a brown cheek reddened with triumph and excitement, who
held out his hand cordially, almost shouting