up in a towering rage!"

A few minutes later this curious trio sat down to dinner, and the
captain, according to a custom established from the commencement of his
sojourn, asked a blessing on the meat in few words, but with a deeply
reverent manner, his great hands being clasped before him, and with his
eyes shut like a little child.

"Well now, before beginning," he said, looking up, "let me understand;
is this matter of the lodging and rent settled?"

"Yes, it is settled," answered Jessie. "We've got used to you, captain,
and should be very, very sorry to lose you."

"Come, that's all right. Let's shake hands on it over the leg of
mutton."

He extended his long arm over the small table, and spread out his
enormous palm in front of Jessie Seaward. With an amused laugh she laid
her little hand in it--to grasp it was out of the question--and the
mighty palm closed for a moment with an affectionate squeeze. The same
ceremony having been gone through with Kate, he proceeded to carve.

And what a difference between the dinners that once graced--perhaps we
should say disgraced--that board, and those that smoked upon it now!
Then, tea and toast, with sometimes an egg, and occasionally a bit of
bacon, were the light viands; now, beef, mutton, peas, greens, potatoes,
and other things, constituted the heavy fare.

The sisters had already begun to get stronger on it. The captain would
have got stronger, no doubt, had that been possible.

And what a satisfactory thing it was to watch Captain Bream at his
meals! There was something grand--absolutely majestic--in his action.
Being a profoundly modest and unselfish man it was not possible to
associate the idea of gluttony with him, though he possessed the
digestion of an ostrich, and the appetite of a shark. There was nothing
hurried, or eager, or careless, in his mode of eating. His motions were
rather slow than otherwise; his proceedings deliberate. He would even
at times check a tempting morsel on its way to his mouth that he might
more thoroughly understand and appreciate something that Jessie or Kate
chanced to be telling him. Yet with all that, he compelled you, while
looking at him, to whisper to yourself--"how he does shovel it in!"

"I declare to you, Kate," said Jessie, on one occasion after the captain
had left the room, "I saw him take one bite to-day which ought to have
choked him, but it didn't. He stuck his fork into a piece of mutton as
big--oh!