away much as
one turns from a picture. At length I came to ask him to sit by, and at
that moment Faith's eyes opened.

Faith always woke up just as a baby does, wide and bewildered, and the
fire had flushed her cheeks, and her hair was disordered, and she fixed
her gaze on him as if he had stepped out of her dream, her lips half
parted and then curling in a smile,--but in a second he moved off with
me, and Faith slipped down and into the little bedroom.

Well, we didn't waste many words until father'd lost the edge of his
appetite, and then I told about Faith.

"'F that don't beat the Dutch!" said father. "Here's Mr.--Mr."------

"Gabriel," said the stranger.

"Yes,--Mr. Gabriel Verelay been served the same trick by the same
squall, only worse and more of it,--knocked off the yacht--What's that
you call her?"

"La belle Louise."

"And left for drowned,--if they see him go at all. But he couldn't 'a'
sinked in that sea, if he'd tried. He kep' afloat; we blundered into
him; and here he is."

Dan and I looked round In considerable surprise, for he was dry as an
August leaf.

"Oh," said the stranger, coloring, and with the least little turn of his
words, as if he didn't always speak English, "the good captain reached
shore, and, finding sticks, he kindled a fire, and we did dry our
clothes until it made fine weather once more."

"Yes," said father; "but 't wouldn't been quite such fine weather, I
reckon, if this 'd gone to the fishes!" And he pushed something across
the table.

It was a pouch with steel snaps, and well stuffed. The stranger colored
again, and held his hand for it, and the snap burst, and great gold
pieces, English coin and very old French ones, rolled about the table,
and father shut his eyes tight; and just then Faith came back and
slipped into her chair. I saw her eyes sparkle as we all reached,
laughing and joking, to gather them; and Mr. Gabriel--we got into the
way of calling him so,--he liked it best--hurried to get them out of
sight as if he'd committed some act of ostentation. And then, to make
amends, he threw off what constraint he had worn in this new atmosphere
of ours, and was so gay, so full of questions and quips and conceits,
all spoken in his strange way, his voice was so sweet, and he laughed so
much and so like a boy, and his words had so much point and brightness,
that I could think of nothing but the showers of colored stars in
fireworks. Dan felt it like a play, sat qui