pped upon them idly for a minute
before he spoke again.

"You are a friend of Fritz's? of my grandson?"

"I have not the pleasure of knowing him, sir. Your niece's introduction
leaves me to explain that I am just a wayfarer who had the misfortune to
twist an ankle, an hour ago, on Skirrid, and crawled here to ask his
way."

His face fell. "I was hoping that you brought news of Fritz. But you
are welcome, sir, to rest your foot here; and I ask your pardon for not
perceiving your misfortune. I am blind. But Wilhelmina--my grandniece
--will attend to your wants."

"She is a young lady of very large heart," said I. He appeared to
consider for a while. "She is with me daily, but I have not seen her
since she was a small child, and I always picture her as a child.
To you, no doubt, she is almost a woman grown?"

"In feeling, I should say, decidedly more woman than child; and in
manner."

"You please me by saying so. She is to marry Fritz, and I wish that to
happen before I die."

Receiving no answer to this--for, of course, I had nothing to say--he
startled me with a sudden question. "You disapprove of cousins
marrying?"

I could only murmur that a great deal depended on circumstances.

"And there are circumstances in this case. Besides, they are second
cousins only. And they both look forward to it. I am not one to force
their inclinations, you understand--though, of course, they know it to
be my wish--the wish of both of us, I may say; for Melchior is at one
with me in this. Wilhelmina accepts her future--speaks of it, indeed,
with gaiety. And as for Fritz--though they have not seen each other
since he was a mere boy and she an infant--as for Fritz, he writes--but
you shall judge from his last letter."

He felt among the packets and selected one. "I know one from t'other by
the knots," he explained. "I am an old seaman! Now here is his last,
written from the South Pacific station. He sends his love to 'Mina, and
jokes about her being husband-high: 'but she must grow, if we are to do
credit to the Van der Knoopes at the altar.' It seems that he is
something below the traditional height of our family; but a thorough
seaman, for all his modesty. There, sir: you will find the passage on
the fourth page, near the top."

I took the letter; and there, to be sure, read the words the old Admiral
had quoted. But it struck me that Fritz Van der Knoope used a very
ladylike handwriting, and of a sort