sh. "I'll ask Un," said she, most
piously. "You--you--you'll not run off, Dannie," she asked, faintly,
"when I--I--shuts my eyes?"

"I'll bide here," says I.

"Then," says she, "I'll ask Un."

The which she did, in her peculiar way. 'Twas a ceremony scandalously
brief and hurried. Once I caught (I thought) a slit in her eye--a
peep-hole through which she spied upon me. Presently she looked up
with a shy little grin. "God says, Dannie," she reported, speaking
with slow precision, the grin now giving place to an expression of
solemnity and highest rapture, "that He 'lows He didn't know what a
fuss you'd make about a little thing like a kiss. He've been wonderful
bothered o' late by overwork, Dannie, an' He's sorry for what He done,
an' 'lows you might overlook it this time. 'You tell Dannie, Judy,'
says He, 'that he've simply no idea what a God like me haves t' put up
with. They's a woman t' Thunder Arm,' says He, 'that's been worryin'
me night an' day t' keep her baby from dyin', an' I simply can't make
up my mind. She'll make me mad an she doesn't look out,' says He, 'an'
then I'll kill it. An' I've the heathen, Judy--all them heathen--on my
mind. 'Tis enough t' drive any God mad. An' jus' now,' says He, 'I've
got a wonderful big gale blowin' on the Labrador, an' I'm near drove
deaf,' says He, 'by the noise them fishermen is makin'. What with the
Labradormen an' the woman t' Thunder Arm an' the heathen 'tis fair
awful. An' now comes Dannie,' says He, 't' make me sick o' my berth!
You tell Dannie,' says he, 't' take the kiss an' be done with it.
Tell un t' go ahead,' says He, 'an' not be afeared o' me. I isn't in
favor o' kissin' as a usual thing,' says He, 'for I've always 'lowed
'twas sort o' silly; but if _you_ don't mind, Judy,' says He, 'why,
_I_ can turn my head.'"

'Twas not persuasive.

"'Tis a white kiss," said she, seeking, in her way, to deck the thing
with attractions.

I would not turn.

"'Tis all silk."

It budged me not, though I craved the kiss with a mounting sense of
need, a vision of despair. It budged me not: I would not be beguiled.

"An' oh, Dannie!" she besought, with her hands appealing, "'tis
_awful_ expensive!"

I returned.

"Take it," she sobbed.

I pecked her lips.

"Volume II., page 26!" roared my uncle, his broad red face appearing
at that moment in the companionway. "You done well, Dannie! 'Tis quite
t' the taste o' Skipper Chesterfield. You're sailin' twelve knots by
th