at the time of his accident.

The Franco-German War came round, and while the two great rivals were
destroying each other, their more peaceful neighbours were quietly
ousting them out of their markets and their commerce. Many English ports
benefited by this condition of things, but none more than Brisport.
It had long ceased to be a fishing village, but was now a large and
prosperous town, with a great breakwater in place of the quay on which
Mary had stood, and a frontage of terraces and grand hotels where
all the grandees of the west country came when they were in need of
a change. All these extensions had made Brisport the centre of a busy
trade, and her ships found their way into every harbour in the world.
Hence it was no wonder, especially in that very busy year of 1870,
that several Brisport vessels were lying in the river and alongside the
wharves of Quebec.

One day John Hardy, who found time hang a little on his hands since his
retirement from business, strolled along by the water's edge listening
to the clanking of the steam winches, and watching the great barrels
and cases as they were swung ashore and piled upon the wharf. He had
observed the coming in of a great ocean steamer, and having waited until
she was safely moored, he was turning away, when a few words fell upon
his ear uttered by some one on board a little weather-beaten barque
close by him. It was only some commonplace order that was bawled out,
but the sound fell upon the old man's ears with a strange mixture of
disuse and familiarity. He stood by the vessel and heard the seamen at
their work, all speaking with the same broad, pleasant jingling accent.
Why did it send such a thrill through his nerves to listen to it? He sat
down upon a coil of rope and pressed his hands to his temples, drinking
in the long-forgotten dialect, and trying to piece together in his mind
the thousand half-formed nebulous recollections which were surging up in
it. Then he rose, and walking along to the stern he read the name of
the ship, The Sunlight, Brisport. Brisport! Again that flush and tingle
through every nerve. Why was that word and the men's speech so familiar
to him? He walked moodily home, and all night he lay tossing and
sleepless, pursuing a shadowy something which was ever within his reach,
and yet which ever evaded him.

Early next morning he was up and down on the wharf listening to the
talk of the west-country sailors. Every word they spoke seemed to