s. My stockings I soaped, scrubbed, wrung out and laid across
the companion rail to dry: but, as it turned out, I was never to use
them or my shoes again. My sweep's jumper, waistcoat, and breeches
Mr. Pengelly carried off, to burn them.

All this while Ben Jope and his sister had been talking earnestly: I
had heard at intervals the murmur of their voices through the
partition; but no distinct words save once, when Mrs. Pengelly called
out to her husband to keep an eye along the beach and report the
appearance of constables. Now so ludicrous was the figure I cut in
my borrowed clothes that on returning to the cabin I expected to be
welcomed with laughter. To my surprise, Ben Jope arose at once with
a serious face and shook me by the hand.

"Good-bye, my lad," he said. "She makes it a condition."

"You're not leaving me, Mr. Jope!"

"Worse'n that. I'm a-goin to marry the widow Babbage."

"Oh, ma'am!" I appealed.

"It'll do him good," said Mrs. Pengelly.

"I honestly think, Sarah," poor Ben protested, "that just now you're
setting too much store by wedlock altogether."

"It's my conditions with you; and you may take it or leave it, Ben."
His sister was adamant, and he turned ruefully to go.

"And you're doing this for me, Mr. Jope!" I caught his hand.

"Don't 'ee mention it. Blast the child!" He crammed his tarpaulin
hat on his head. "I don't mean you, my lad, but t'other one.
If he makes up a rhyme 'pon me, I'll--I'll--"

Speech failed him. He wrung my hand, staggered up the companion, and
was gone.

"It'll be the making of him," said Mrs. Pengelly with composure.
"I don't like the woman myself, but a better manager you wouldn't
meet."

She remembered presently that Ben had departed without his promised
dish of tea, and this seemed to suggest to her that the time had
arrived for preparing a meal. With singular dexterity and almost
without shifting her posture she slipped one of the seamen's bags
from somewhere beneath her shoulders, drew it upon her lap, and
produced a miscellaneous feast--a cheek of pork, a loaf, a saffron
cake; a covered jar which, being opened, diffused the fragrance of
marinated pilchards; a bagful of periwinkles, a bunch of enormous
radishes, a dish of cream wrapped about in cabbage-leaves, a basket
of raspberries similarly wrapped; finally, two bottles of stout.

"To my mind," she explained as she set these forth on the table
beside her, each accurately in its place, an