ay if he likes. Next, I may tell you that I
have already arranged for men to work night and day in relays on both my
vessels--or rather your vessels. Mr. Director-General must see his
hospital wards fitted out to the last locker, and I've taken another
liberty in that direction. There's your cheque-book, and you are to draw
at Yarmouth or London for any amount that you may think necessary. And
now I fancy that is about all I need say."

Then Mr. Cassall smiled on his dumb-foundered hearers.

Ferrier said, "I must eventually stay on shore, I fear. I have resigned
the professorship which I had hoped to keep; but I do not need to
practise, and I am ready to see your venture well started."

Then the host finally insisted on hearing all about the cruise; he could
understand every local allusion now, and the narrative touched him far
more than any romance could have done. The girls dropped in a word here
and there, for they claimed to be among the initiated, and thus an
evening was spent in piling fresh fuel on the old gentleman's newborn
fire of enthusiasm.

There never was such an elderly tornado of a man. After church on Sunday
he packed the girls off in the pony-carriage, and then took his guests
for a most vehement walk, during which he asked questions in a voice as
vehement as his gait, and set forth projects with all the fine breadth
of conception and heedlessness of cost which might be expected from an
inspired man with a practically inexhaustible fund at his disposal.

The good Henry Fullerton had long walked in darkness; doubts had been
presented to him; jibes and sneers had hailed upon him; all sorts of
mean detractors had tried to label him as visionary, or crackbrain, or
humbug, or even as money-grub: and now the clouds that obscured the wild
path along which he had fared with such forlorn courage were all lifted
away, and he saw the fulfilment of the visions which had tantalized him
on doleful nights, when effort seemed vain and hope dead. He maintained
his serenity, and calmly calculated pounds and shillings with all the
methodic coolness of a banker's clerk. On the Sunday evening he was
asked to confer privately with Mr. Cassall, and Ferrier was left free.
Of course Lewis proposed a stroll in the grounds--what young man would
have missed the opportunity?--and he listened delightedly to that
musical, girlish talk for which he had longed during his tremendous
vigils on the Sea of Storms.

Miss Ranken was i