ing. "Hartley's daughter? Why, I should have
thought--"

The best and prettiest girl in Salthaven

"Yes, sir?" said Captain Trimblett, after a pause.

"Nothing," concluded Robert, lamely. "She doesn't look like it; that's
all."

"She's got his nose," maintained the captain, with the obstinate air of
a man prepared to go to the stake for his opinions. "Like as two peas
their noses are; you'd know them for father and daughter anywhere by
that alone."

Mr. Vyner assented absently. He was wondering where the daughter of the
chief clerk got her high looks from.

"Very clever girl," continued the captain. "She got a scholarship and
went to college, and then, when her poor mother died, Hartley was so
lonely that she gave it all up and came home to keep house for him."

"Quite a blue-stocking," suggested Robert.

"There's nothing of the blue-stocking about her," said the captain,
warmly. "In fact, I shouldn't be surprised if she became engaged soon."

Mr. Vyner became interested. "Oh!" he said, with an instinctive glance
over his left shoulder.

Captain Trimblett nodded sagely. "Young fellow of the name of Saunders,"
he said slowly.

"Oh!" said the other again.

"You might have seen him at Wilson's, the ship-broker's," pursued the
captain. "Bert Saunders his name is. Rather a dressy youngster, perhaps.
Generally wears a pink shirt and a very high stand-up collar--one o'
those collars that you have to get used to."

Mr. Vyner nodded.

"He's not good enough for her," said the captain, shaking his head. "But
then, nobody is. Looked at that way it's all right."

"You seem to take a great interest in it," said Robert.

"He came to me with his troubles," said Captain Trimblett, bunching up
his gray beard in his hand reflectively. "Leastways, he made a
remark or two which I took up. Acting under my advice he is taking up
gardening."

Mr. Vyner glanced at him in mystification.

"Hartley is a great gardener," explained the other with a satisfied
smile. "What is the result? He can go there when he likes, so to speak.
No awkwardness or anything of that sort. He can turn up there bold as
brass to borrow a trowel, and take three or four hours doing it."

"You're a danger to society," said Robert, shaking his head.

"People ought to marry while they're young," said the captain. "If they
don't, like as not they're crazy to marry in their old age. There's my
landlord here at Tranquil Vale, fifty-two next birthday, and