why you feel bound to sell.'

"'It's a good price, too, that he offers. You mustn't think but I'm
sorry enough--'

"'To turn me out? I thank you, Mr. Hosking; but you are doing the right
thing.'

"Since Mrs. Carkeek was to stay, the arrangement lacked nothing of
absolute perfection--except, perhaps, that it found no room for me.

"'_She_--Margaret-will be happy,' I said; 'with her cousins, you know.'

"'Oh yes, miss, she will be happy, sure enough,' Mrs. Carkeek agreed.

"So when the time came I packed up my boxes, and tried to be cheerful.
But on the last morning, when they stood corded in the hall, I sent Mrs.
Carkeek upstairs upon some poor excuse, and stepped alone into the
pantry.

"'Margaret!' I whispered.

"There was no answer at all. I had scarcely dared to hope for one.
Yet I tried again, and, shutting my eyes this time, stretched out both
hands and whispered:

"'Margaret!'

"And I will swear to my dying day that two little hands stole and
rested--for a moment only--in mine."

THE LADY OF THE SHIP

[_Or so much as is told of her by Paschal Tonkin, steward and major-domo
to the lamented John Milliton, of Pengersick Castle, in Cornwall: of her
coming in the Portugal Ship, anno 1526; her marriage with the said
Milliton and alleged sorceries; with particulars of the Barbary men
wrecked in Mount's Bay and their entertainment in the town of Market
Jew._]

My purpose is to clear the memory of my late and dear Master; and to
this end I shall tell the truth and the truth only, so far as I know it,
admitting his faults, which, since he has taken them before God, no man
should now aggravate by guess-work. That he had traffic with secret
arts is certain; but I believe with no purpose but to fight the Devil
with his own armoury. He never was a robber as Mr. Thomas St. Aubyn and
Mr. William Godolphin accused him; nor, as the vulgar pretended, a
lustful and bloody man. What he did was done in effort to save a
woman's soul; as Jude tells us, "_Of some have compassion, that are in
doubt; and others save, having mercy with fear, pulling them out of the
fire, hating even the garment spotted by the flesh_"--though this, alas!
my dear Master could not. And so with Jude I would end, praying for all
of us and ascribing praise _to the only wise God, our Saviour, who is
able to guard us from stumbling and set us faultless before His presence
with exceeding joy_.

It was in January, 1526, after a tempest