deserve to be. You must know," continued the captain, sinking his voice
to a hoarse whisper, "that your dear father used to allow me to put my
savin's into his hands for investment, and the investments succeeded so
well that at last I found myself in possession of five hundred a year!"

Captain Bream said this with much deliberation and an emphatic nod for
each word, while he gazed solemnly in Ruth's face. "Not a bad fortune
for an old bachelor, eh? Then," he continued, after a moment's pause,
"when I was wrecked, two years ago in Australia, I took a fancy to have
a look at the gold diggin's, so off I went to Bendigo, and I set to work
diggin' for the mere fun o' the thing, and the very first day I turned
up a nugget as big as my fist and two of the same sort the day after,
an' then a lot o' little ones; in fact I had got hold of a first-rate
claim, an' when I had dug away for a month or so I put it all in a big
chest, sold the claim, and came straight home, bringin' the chest with
me. I have it now, up in my cabin yonder. It well-nigh broke my back
gittin' it up the stair, though my back ain't a weak one."

"And how much is the gold worth?" eagerly asked Ruth, who had listened
with a sympathetic expression on her face.

"That's more than I can tell. I scarce know how to go about convertin'
it into cash; but I'm in no hurry. Now mind, Miss Ruth, not a word o'
this to any livin' soul. Not even to your own mother, for she ain't
_my_ mother, d'ee see, an' has no right to know it. In fact I've never
told it to any one till this day, for I have no one in the wide world to
care about it. Once, indeed, I had--"

He stopped short.

"Ah! you are thinking of your sister?" said the sympathetic Ruth; "the
sister whom you once told me about long ago."

"Yes, Miss Ruth, I _was_ thinkin' o' her; but--" He stopped again.

"Do tell me about her," said Ruth, earnestly. "Has she been long dead?"

"Dead! my dear. I didn't say she was dead, an' yet it ain't unlikely
she is, for it's long, long since I heard of her. There's not much to
tell about her after all," said the captain, sadly. "But she was a dear
sweet little girl at the time--just turned eighteen--an' very fond o'
me. We had no parents living, an' no kindred except one old aunt, with
whom my sister lived. I was away at the time on a long voyage, and had
to take a cargo from the East Indies to China before returnin' home. At
Hongkong I fell ill, an' was lai