coffee at a draught--he always used a slop-bowl--and applied himself
with renewed zest to a Norfolk dumpling, in the making of which delicacy
his wife had no equal.

"I believe that Mr Durant is a kind good man," said Nora, feeding the
infant with a crust dipped in milk, "and I am quite sure that he has got
the sweetest daughter that ever a man was blessed with--Miss Katie; you
know her, I suppose?"

"'Aven't seed 'er yet," was Dick's curt reply.

"She's a dear creature," continued Nora--still doing her best to choke
the infant--"she found out where I lived while she was in search of a
sick boy in Yarmouth, who, she said, was the brother of a poor ragged
boy named Billy Towler, she had once met with. Of course I had to tell
her that Billy had been deceiving her and had no brother. Oh! you
should have seen her kind face, Dick, when I told her this. I do think
that up to that time she had lived under the belief that a young boy
with a good-looking face and an honest look could not be a deceiver."

"Poor thing," said Dick, with a sad shake of the head, as if pitying her
ignorance.

"Yes," continued Nora--still attempting to choke the infant--"she could
not say a word at that time, but went away with her eyes full of tears.
I saw her often afterwards, and tried to convince her there might be
some good in Billy after all, but she was not easily encouraged, for her
belief in appearances had got a shake that she seemed to find it
difficult to get over. That was when Billy was lying ill in hospital.
I have not seen much of her since then, she and her father having been
away in London."

"H'm, I'm raither inclined to jine her in thinkin' that no good'll come
o' that young scamp. He's too sharp by half," said Dick with a frown.
"Depend upon it, Nora, w'en a boy 'as gone a great length in wickedness
there's no chance o' reclaimin' him."

"Dick," exclaimed Nora, with sudden energy, "depend upon it that
_that's_ not true, for it does not correspond with the Bible, which says
that our Lord came not to call the righteous but _sinners_ to
repentance."

"There's truth in _that_, anyhow," replied Dick, gazing thoughtfully
into Nora's countenance, as if the truth had come home to him for the
first time. What his further observations on the point might have been
we know not, as at that moment the door opened and one of his mates
entered, saying that he had come to go down with him to the buoy-store,
as the superintendent h