ream, seized him in her arms, and covered the back of his neck with
soap-suds.

The castle was destined to stand, after all! Ruth's joy overflowed.
She glanced hurriedly round for some object on which to expend it.
There was nothing but the "blessed babby"--and that was covered with
tar; but genuine feeling does not stick at trifles. Ruth caught up the
filthy little creature, pressed it to her bounding heart, wept and
laughed, and covered it with passionate kisses to such an extent that
her own fair face became thoroughly besmeared, and it cost Mrs Joe an
additional half hour's labour to get her clean, besides an enormous
expenditure of butter--though that was selling at the time at the high
figure of 1 shilling 6 pence a pound!

CHAPTER THIRTY ONE.

THE LAST.

There came a day, not very long after the events narrated in the
previous chapter, when a grand wedding took place in Yarmouth.

But it was not meant to be a grand one, by any means. Quite the
contrary. The parties principally concerned were modest, retiring, and
courted privacy. But the more they courted privacy, the more did that
condition--like a coy maiden--fly away from them.

The name of the bride was Ruth, and the name of the bridegroom began,--
as Captain Bream was fond of saying--with a Dee.

Neither bride nor groom had anything particular to do with the sea, yet
that wedding might have easily been mistaken for a fisherman's wedding--
as well as a semi-public one, so numerous were the salts--young and
old--who attended it; some with invitation, and others without. You
see, the ceremony being performed in the old parish church, any one who
chose had a right to be there and look on.

The reason of this nautical character of the wedding was not far to
seek, for had not the bridegroom--whose name began with a Dee--risked
his life in rescuing from the deep a Bright--we might almost say the
brightest--young life belonging to the fishing fleets of the North Sea?
And was not the lovely bride one of the best and staunchest friends of
the fisherman? And was she not mixed up, somehow, with the history of
that good old sea-captain--if not actually a relation of his--who
preached so powerfully, and who laboured so earnestly to turn seamen
from darkness to light? And had not the wedding been expressly delayed
until the period of one of the smacks' return to port, so that six
fishermen--namely, Joe Davidson, Ned Spivin, Luke Trevor, John Gunter,
B