d
Heavenly Father make you speak?--I am so glad--please speak to me!"

Edward could not raise his eyes to hers, but covering his face with his
other hand, he fell on his knees, saying to her and Captain Durbin, "I
am afraid it was very wicked, but indeed I couldn't help it. I could
speak all the time, Emily, but I was afraid of being beaten as I used to
be, if I seemed like other people--now if they beat me I must bear
it--better for me to be beaten than to have Emily lie there with no one
to help her."

"But who is going to beat you? Nobody will beat you--we all love
you--don't we, father?" cried Emily, bending forward and putting her arm
around the neck of her _protege_.

"We must hear first whether he is worthy of our love, my dear," said
Captain Durbin, as he attempted to withdraw his daughter's arm, and to
make her lie down again--but Edward had seized the little hand and held
it around his neck, while he exclaimed in the most imploring tones, "Oh,
sir I let Emily love me--nobody else except my poor mother ever loved
me. Beat me as much as you please, and I will not say a word, but oh!
pray, sir! don't tell Emily she must not love me."

"And, father, if he were wicked, you know you told me once that we must
love the wicked and try to do them good, because our Father in Heaven
loved us while we were yet sinners," urged Emily.

That gentle voice could not be unheeded, and as Captain Durbin kissed
her, he laid his hand kindly on the boy's head, saying in more friendly
tones, "I hope he has not been wicked, but we will hear more about it
to-morrow--I cannot stay longer with you now, and you must lie still
just where I have put you, or you may roll out and get hurt. We shall
have a rough sea most of the night, though, thank God! no danger, for
the wind had shifted and slackened a little before that great wave swept
you away!"

"May I not stay by Emily, sir, and tell her what made me not speak? I
will not let her sit up again."

"Oh, yes! do, father, let him stay till you come down again."

Captain Durbin consented, and when he came down again at midnight from
the deck, the children had both fallen asleep, but their hands were
clasped in each other's, and the flushed cheeks and dewy lashes of both
showed that they had been weeping. The next morning Captain Durbin heard
the story of the orphan boy. Emily Durbin stood beside him while he told
it, and he needed the courage which her presence gave him, for his cowed