ce again the Queen Ann needed repairing, and again the captain found
himself at his old boarding-place.

Good Mrs. Simmons surveyed him tenderly through her glasses, and
instantly saw there had something unusual happened. Could it be--oh! if
it only _could_ be--that he had put off the old man, which is sin! She
longed to ask him, yet, with a woman's natural delicacy, she determined
to find out without direct questioning.

"Good season, cap'en?" she inquired.

"A No. 1, ma'am--positively first-class," replied the captain.

"Hed good health--no ager?" she continued.

"Never was better, my dear woman--healthy right to the top notch," he
answered.

"It must be," said good Mrs. Simmons, to herself--"it can't be nothin'
else. Bless the Lord!"

This pious sentiment she followed up by a hymn, whose irregularities of
time and tune were fully atoned for by the spirit with which she sung. A
knock at the door interrupted her.

"Come in!" she cried.

Captain Sam entered, and laid a good-sized, flat flask on the table,
saying:

"I've just been unpackin', an' I found this; p'r'aps you ken use it fur
cookin'. It's no use to me; I've sworn off drinkin'."

And before the astonished lady could say a word, he was gone.

But the good soul could endure the suspense no longer. She hurried to
the door, and cried:

"Cap'en!"

"That's me," answered Captain Sam, returning.

"Cap'en," said Mrs. Simmons, in a voice in which solemnity and
excitement struggled for the mastery, "hez the Lord sent His angel unto
you?"

"He hez," replied the captain, in a very decided tone, and abruptly
turned, and hurried to his own room.

"Bless the Lord, O my soul!" almost shouted Mrs. Simmons, in her
ecstacy. "We musn't worry them that's weak in the faith, but I sha'n't
be satisfied till I hear him tell his experience. Oh, _what_ a blessed
thing to relate at prayer-meetin' to-night!"

There was, indeed, a rattling of dry bones at the prayer-meeting that
night, for it was the first time in the history of the church that the
conversion of a steamboat captain had been reported.

On returning home from the meeting, additional proof awaited the happy
old saint. The captain was in his room--in his room at nine o'clock in
the evening! She had known the captain for years, but he had never
before got in so early. There could be no doubt about it, though--there
he was, softly whistling.

"I'd rather hear him whistlin' Windham or Boylston," thought M