the mate.

"One what?" enquired Hetty.

"Those," said the mate.

In full view of the horrified skipper, who was cautiously peeping at the
supposed lunatic through the skylight, he kissed her again.

"You can go away, Ben," said the skipper huskily to the expert. "D'ye
hear, you can go AWAY, and not a word about this, mind."

The expert went away grumbling, and the father, after another glance,
which showed him his daughter nestling comfortably on the mate's right
shoulder, stole away and brooded darkly over this crowning complication.
An ordinary man would have run down and interrupted them; the master
of the Jessica thought he could attain his ends more certainly by
diplomacy, and so careful was his demeanour that the couple in the cabin
had no idea that they had been observed--the mate listening calmly to
a lecture on incipient idiocy which the skipper thought it advisable to
bestow.

Until the mid-day meal on the day following he made no sign. If anything
he was even more affable than usual, though his wrath rose at the
glances which were being exchanged across the table.

"By the way, Jack," he said at length, "what's become of Kitty Loney?"

"Who?" inquired the mate. "Who's Kitty Loney?"

It was now the skipper's turn to stare, and he did it admirably.

"Kitty Loney," he said in surprise, "the little girl you are going to
marry."

"Who are you getting at?" said the mate, going scarlet as he met the
gaze opposite.

"I don't know what you mean," said the skipper with dignity. "I'm
allooding to Kitty Loney, the little girl in the red hat and white
feathers you introduced to me as your future."

The mate sank back in his seat, and regarded him with open-mouthed,
horrified astonishment.

"You don't mean to say you've chucked 'er," pursued the heartless
skipper, "after getting an advance from me to buy the ring with, too?
Didn't you buy the ring with the money?"

"No," said the mate, "I--oh, no--of course--what on earth are you
talking about?"

The skipper rose from his seat and regarded him sorrowfully but
severely. "I'm sorry, Jack," he said stiffly, "if I've said anything to
annoy you, or anyway hurt your feelings. O' course it's your business,
not mine. P'raps you'll say you never heard o' Kitty Loney?"

"I do say so," said the bewildered mate; "I do say so."

The skipper eyed him sternly, and without another word left the cabin.
"If she's like her mother," he said to himself, chuckling as he