r
why he was going to London; but a nicer young fellow I never met. He was
rather simple and unsophisticated, and with less knowledge of the world
than any man I ever knew; but he did not mind owning to it, and was as
grateful as possible for any little hints which, as an older man who had
not gone through life with his eyes shut, I was of course able to give
him. He was of a shy disposition I could see, and wanted drawing out;
but he soon took to me, and in a surprisingly short time we became
friends. He was in the next cabin to mine, and evidently wished so much
to have been with me, that I tried to get another man to exchange; but
he was grumpy about it, and I had to give it up, much to young Carr's
disappointment. Indeed, he was quite silent and morose for a whole day
about it, poor fellow. He was a tall handsome young man, slightly built,
with the kind of sallow complexion that women admire, and I wondered at
his preferring my company to that of the womankind on board, who were
certainly very civil to him. One evening when I was rallying him on the
subject, as we were leaning over the side (for though it was December it
was hot enough in the Red Sea to lounge on deck), he told me that he was
engaged to be married to a beautiful young American girl. I forget her
name, but I remember he told it me--Dulcima Something--but it is of no
consequence. I quite understood then. I always can enter into the
feelings of others so entirely. I know when I was engaged myself once,
long ago, I did not seem to care to talk to any one but her. She did not
feel the same about it, which perhaps accounted for her marrying some
one else, which was quite a blow to me at the time. But still I could
fully enter into young Carr's feelings, especially when he went on to
expatiate on her perfections. Nothing, he averred, was too good for her.
At last he dropped his voice, and, after looking about him in the dusk,
to make sure he was not overheard, he said:

"I have picked up a few stones for her on my travels; a few sapphires of
considerable value. I don't care to have it generally known that I have
jewels about me, but I don't mind telling _you_."

"My dear fellow," I replied, laying my hand on his shoulder, and sinking
my voice to a whisper, "not a soul on board this vessel suspects it, but
so have I."

It was too dark for me see his face, but I felt that he was much
impressed by what I had told him.

"Then _you_ will know where I had be