lly made a feeble
pretence of having a tremendous appetite, failing most ridiculously in
the attempt, while his sister heaped up my plate, we were all too much
perturbed in our minds to do justice to the banquet. So it was that the
Mevagissey pie, toothsome as it was, went almost untasted away, Jane
removing the remains presently to the larder--that was, as she said, but
I could not help noticing that she did not return afterwards to clear
away the dinner things and make matters tidy in the kitchen, as was her
regular custom when we had finished meals.

I soon found out the reason of this, when, on going up shortly
afterwards to my little room, I discovered the soft-hearted creature
bending over the sea-chest which I had been presented with--in addition
to her son Teddy's clothes and other property--"having a good cry," as
she said in excuse for the weakness.

From some cause or other, she had taken to me from the moment her
brother Sam first brought me to the cottage, placing me in the vacant
spot in her heart left by Teddy's early death, and I am sure my own
mother, if she had lived, could not have loved me more.

Of course I reciprocated her affection--how could I help it, when she
and her brother were the only beings in the world who had ever exhibited
any tenderness towards me?

Strangely enough, however, she would never allow me to call her "mother"
or "Mistress Pengelly," as I wanted to--thinking "Jane" too familiar,
especially when applied by a youngster like myself to a middle-aged
woman.

No, she would not hear of my addressing her otherwise than by her
Christian name.

"If you calls me Missis anything, dearie, mind if I don't speak to you
always as `Master Leigh'--that distant as how you won't know me," she
said; so, as she always said what she meant, I did as she wished, and
she continued to style me her "dearie," that being the affectionate pet
name she had for me, in the same way as her brother Sam had dubbed me
his "cockbird," when he first introduced himself to me on the Hoe, a
mode of address which he still persisted in.

I may add, by the way, to make an end of these explanations, that Jane
Pengelly had married her first cousin on the father's side, as the
matter was once elaborately made plain to me; consequently, she was not
compelled, as most ladies are, to "change her name" when she wedded
Teddy's sire, and still retained after marriage her ancestral
patronymic--which was sometimes sporte