randfather of her dead husband, the old Spaniard at St. Augustine, she
again went among the cavaliers and was enabled to marry Hugh Price. It
is not a happy life she leads now, though, for there is continual
trouble between the husband and the children, so she is grievously
harassed in mind continually."

Sir Albert listened as an uninterested person might, then asked some
questions about Hugh Price and his good wife Dorothe, and the refractory
children, who were causing so much trouble. He found the Virginian
voluble and willing to impart all the information he had; but he grew
heartily tired of the loafer and at last left him.

No one was more interested in the stranger from across the sea than
Rebecca Stevens. She had not seen him; but she had heard so much of him
from her brother and others, that her girlish curiosity was aroused. One
evening, as she was taking her favorite walk about the village, having
wandered farther than she intended, she found herself in the wood above
the town, near the old building, which Captain John Smith had called the
glass-house. She turned and began at once retracing her steps, for
already the sun had set, and the shades of night were gathering over the
landscape. She was in sight of the church, when a short, fat little man
suddenly met her. He was out of breath, as if he had been running. In
the gathering twilight she recognized him as her persecutor.

"Ah! Miss Stevens, this is truly extraordinary. Believe me, this meeting
is quite providential, for it enables me to pour into your ear my
tale of love."

"Mr. Peram, begone, leave me!"

"Oh, no, my dear, I will never let you go until you have consented to
take my name."

In his zeal, the ungentlemanly wooer seized her hand, and his vicious
little eyes glared at her with such ferocity, that she gave utterance to
a shriek of fear. The tread of hurried feet fell on her ears, and
through the deepening shades of twilight, she caught a glimpse of a
scarlet coat, long white hair and beard and flashing jewels. Hands of
iron seized Giles Peram. He was lifted into the air as if he had been an
infant, and flung head first into a cluster of white thorn, where he lay
for a few moments, confused and bleeding. Then Sir Albert St. Croix
raised the half-fainting Rebecca from the ground and said:

"Come, my child, be not affrighted; he will not harm you."

She gazed up at the kind face and asked:

"Are you the owner of the ship _Despair_?"