who
was a tender soul, took hers out and wept unrestrainedly. At first the
captain took it well enough. It was a tribute to his power, but when
they took to sobbing one against the other, his temper rose, and he
sternly commanded silence.

"I shall be like--this--every day at sea," sobbed Chrissie vindictively,
"only worse; making us all ridiculous."

"Stop that noise directly!" vociferated the captain.

"We c-c-can't," sobbed Miss Polson.

"And we d-don't want to," said Chrissie. "It's all we can do, and we're
going to do it. You'd better g-go out and stop something else. You can't
stop us."

The captain took the advice and went, and in the billiard-room of the
"George" heard some news which set him thinking, and which brought him
back somewhat earlier than he had at first intended. A small group at
his gate broke up into its elements at his approach, and the captain,
following his sister and daughter into the room, sat down and eyed them
severely.

"So you're going to run off to London to get married, are you, miss?" he
said ferociously. "Well, we'll see. You don't go out of my sight until
we sail, and if I catch that pettifogging lawyer round at my gate again,
I'll break every bone in his body, mind that."

For the next three days the captain kept his daughter under observation,
and never allowed her to stir abroad except in his company. The evening
of the third day, to his own great surprise, he spent at a Dorcas. The
company was not congenial, several of the ladies putting their work
away, and glaring frigidly at the intruder; and though they could see
clearly that he was suffering greatly, made no attempt to put him at his
ease. He was very thoughtful all the way home, and the next day took a
partner into the concern, in the shape of his boatswain.

"You understand, Tucker," he concluded, as the hapless seaman stood in
a cringing attitude before Chrissie, "that you never let my daughter out
of your sight. When she goes out you go with her."

"Yessir," said Tucker; "and suppose she tells me to go home, what am I
to do then?"

"You're a fool," said the captain sharply. "It doesn't matter what she
says or does; unless you are in the same room, you are never to be more
than three yards from her."

"Make it four, cap'n," said the boatswain, in a broken voice.

"Three," said the captain; "and mind, she's artful. All girls are, and
she'll try and give you the slip. I've had information given me as to
wha