and I long to go back to
America--we cannot persuade father."

"Miss Dolly, will you excuse me for remarking that you wear a very
peculiar watch-chain," Mr. Shubrick said next, somewhat irrelevantly.

"My watch-chain! Oh, yes, I know it is peculiar," said Dolly. "For
anything I know, there is only one in the world."

"May I ask, whose manufacture it is?"

"It was made by somebody--a sort of a friend, and yet not a friend
either--somebody I shall never see again."

"Ah? How is that?"

"It is a great while ago," said Dolly. "I was a little girl. At that
time I was at school in Philadelphia, and staying with my aunt there. O
Aunt Hal! how I would like to see her!--The girls were all taken one
day to see a man-of-war lying in the river; our schoolmistress took us;
it was her way to take us to see things on the holidays; and this time
it was a man-of-war; a beautiful ship; the 'Achilles.' My chain is made
out of some threads of a cable on board the 'Achilles.'"

"You did not make it?"

"No, indeed. I could not, nor anybody else that I know. The manufacture
is exquisite. Look at it," said Dolly, putting chain and watch in Mr.
Shubrick's hand.

"But somebody must have made it," said the young officer, examining the
chain attentively.

"Yes. It was odd enough. The others were having lunch; I could not get
into the little cabin where the table was set, the place was so full;
and so I wandered away to look at things. I had not seen them half
enough, and then one of the young officers of the ship found me--he was
a midshipman, I believe--and he was very good to me. He took me up and
down and round and about; and then I was trying to get a little bit of
a piece off a cable that lay coiled up on the deck and could not, and
he said he would send me a piece; and he sent me that."

"Seems strong," said Mr. Shubrick, still examining the chain.

"Oh, it is very strong."

"This is a nice little watch. Deserves a better thing to carry it."

"Better!" cried Dolly, stretching out her hand for the chain. "You do
not appreciate it. I like this better than any other. I always wear
this. Father gave me a very handsome gold chain; he was of your
opinion; but I have never had it on. This is my cable." She slipped the
chain over her neck as she spoke.

"What makes you think you will never see the maker of the cable again?"

"Oh, that is a part of the story I did not tell you. With the chain
came a little note, asking me to say