irl's face so earnestly that he forgot to
answer her.

"Oh, yes, I have thought of it," he replied a little later, smiling at
his guest. "A man never wholly forgets his trade. But what a taste you
have for sea yarns, little lady! I half-way think, now, that if you had
not been born a girl you might have followed the sea for your calling."

"I should have loved it best of anything in the world," answered Madge
fervently, gazing at the beautiful expanse of sunny, blue water. "I never
feel as much at home anywhere as I do on the sea. You see," she continued
confidingly, "I have a reason for loving the water. My father was a
sailor. He was a captain in the United States Navy once."

"'A captain in the United States Navy,'" Captain Jules repeated huskily.
"I thought so. I thought so."

"Why?" asked Madge wonderingly.

Captain Jules pulled his needle slowly through a heavy piece of sail
cloth. It must have stuck, he was so long about it, and his big hands
fumbled it so clumsily.

"Oh, because of your liking for the water, Miss Madge," he returned
quietly. "You see, there are two great loves born in the hearts of men
and women that you never can get away from. The one is the love of the
soil and the other is the love of the sea. No matter what your life is,
if you have those two passions in you, you've got to get back to the
country or to the water when your chance comes. But why do you say that
your father was once a captain in the United States Navy? Is he dead?"

"I am afraid so," replied Madge faintly. Of late she was beginning to
believe that her uncle and aunt, Mrs. Curtis and all her older friends
were right. If her father were not dead in all these long years, surely
he would have tried to find her. He would have sought to discover some
news of the daughter whom he had left when she was only a baby.

Captain Jules seemed about to say something, then, changed his mind. He
shook his great, shaggy, gray head and looked at Madge tenderly. "Is your
mother living?" he inquired.

"No, she died soon after my father went away to join his ship on his last
voyage," Madge went on sadly, her eyes filling with tears. She was half
tempted to tell the old sailor her father's story, then decided to
reserve it until some future day when she felt that she knew him better.
In spite of her liking for the old sea captain, she realized that she had
hardly known him long enough to make him her confidant.

Captain Jules continued to