Sisters. Ada Cambridge

amused Deborah, who grasped the situation as surely as they did, to note the bristling antipathy behind the careful politeness of their mutual regard. If it did not bristle under her immediate eye, it crawled.

      "Look out for the articles of virtue," Claud had warned her earlier in the evening. "That big sailor of yours is rather like a bull in a china shop; he nearly had the carved table over just now. He doesn't know just how to judge distance in relation to his bulk. I'd like to know his fighting weight. When he plants his hoof you can feel the floor shake."

      "He IS a fine figure of a man," Deb commented, with a smile.

      "I can't," yawned Mr. Dalzell casually, "stand a person who eats curry with a knife and fork."

      "It was pretty tough, that curry. I expect he couldn't get it to pieces with a spoon."

      "He did not try to."

      "I never noticed. I shouldn't remember to notice a little trifle like that."

      "My dear girl, it is the little trifle that marks the man."

      "Oh!" said Deb. And then she sought Guthrie Carey, and brought him to sit beside her.

      "That gentleman sings well," remarked Guthrie tepidly, at the conclusion of a finely rendered song. "I often wish I could do those ornamental things. Unfortunately, a man who has his work—if he sticks to it properly—gets no time to qualify. I'm afraid I shall never shine at drawing-room tricks."

      "Tell me about your work," said clever Deb, smiling behind her waving fan.

      At once she had him quite happy, talking about himself. No effort was necessary to draw him out; that she deigned to listen to him was enough. His struggles as boy—blue-nose boy; his tough battle for the first certificate; his complicated trials as second mate, holding theoretically an authority that was practically none; his rise to be qualified master and actual mate—no "t'penny-ha'penny" position in his eyes evidently; his anticipation of the "master extra" and the pass in steam, which might lead to anything—the whole tale was told her in terse, straightforward fashion, but with an art new to the modest sailor-man, who hated brag as much as cowardice. He bragged in self-defence, in challenge of the formidable equipment of his rival. And how interested she was! How well she understood his case—that it was better than the swellest training-ship to make your own way by your own exertions, and splendid to have done so much while still on the right side of thirty.

      So much! He had done more than that—he had been a husband and father at twenty-one. But this, his most distinguished exploit, was not mentioned.

      CHAPTER VI.

       Table of Contents

      He mentioned it next day, however. He had to; for after breakfast a letter, forwarded from Five Creeks, reached him from the baby's caretaker—the lady of whom he stood in such undignified dread. The sight of her handwriting paled his brown face and set his stout heart fluttering. What did she want of him? He kept the letter unopened for some time, because he was afraid to know, although convinced beforehand that he did know—that, of course, it was the visit he should have paid before coming up country. When at last he drew the sheet from its envelope, as if it had come from an infected house, and had not been fumigated, and cast a hurried glance over the contents, he found that the unexpected had happened once more—the wildly unexpected.

      She was going to be married. He was a "general merchant" in prosperous business, and there was nothing to wait for—except Mr. Carey's instructions as to what was to be done with the dear little boy. She would feel acutely the parting from him, after he had been from his birth like a child of her own, but Mr. Carey would understand that she could not now continue her labour of love on his behalf—that she had others to consider. But she knew of a most excellent substitute—a dear friend of her own, who had long taken the deepest interest in darling Harry, and with whom she was sure he would be as safe and happy as with herself. She had expected to see Mr. Carey when he arrived, to arrange matters; she hoped he would come as soon as possible.

      In the bewilderment of his mingled elation and anxieties, the young father did not know what to do for the moment, while recognising the urgent need for action. He must go as soon as possible, of course; but he could not depart suddenly without a reason, and to give the reason would be to give himself away to Alice Urquhart. Besides, a day's outing had been planned on purpose for him; the possibilities in connection with it were enormous; and five days of his leave were unexpended still. He must think it over. He must have advice. So, as a first instalment of duty, he scrawled a recklessly affectionate letter, full of gratitude to her who had been his good genius and the guardian angel of his boy. He did not disguise his envy of the general merchant, whose vows of love could not have excelled in fervent expression the good wishes of the writer for the happiness of the betrothed pair. He hoped to have the pleasure of seeing his dear old friend on the following day, or the day after that at latest; and he promised himself the satisfaction of squandering his saved pay on such a wedding present as would at least cover the cost of the bread and milk the boy had devoured at her expense. Guthrie dropped his letter in the post-bag while they were calling to him that it was time to start. And he turned the key of silence upon his secret until he could pour it into the right ear.

      It was a wonder he did not pour it into Mary's, for she drove him to Bundaboo, and nobody could have been more sympathetic than she. She was the virtual mother of the family, who loved children, and she was not—she could not be—a husband-hunter; a sensible man in domestic difficulties could not have sought a wiser confidante. Yet he resisted stubbornly all her gentle invitations to confide. In the first place, he did not want to go with her in the pony-carriage, while Deb and Dalzell rode. He did not like to see it taken for granted, as it seemed to be by all, that a sailor on horseback must necessarily make a fool of himself; the slight to his self-respect was enough to dull the edge of his joy in the general merchant's proceedings—for, as the reader will remember, he was still but three-and-twenty.

      He had to weigh down the springs of a little basket thing no better than an invalid's wheel-chair, and see the young exquisite, whom he could have tossed over his shoulder with one hand, show off feats of fancy horsemanship to make Deb's dark eyes kindle. Mr. Pennycuick had carelessly asked Billy's degenerate son to "school a bit" a creature which for weeks had not allowed a man upon his back, and had had no exercise beyond his voluntary scamperings about the paddock from which he had been brought, dancing with excitement and indignation. All the stablemen had been required to get his bridle and saddle on; he now wheeled round and round in the large space left for him, while Claud Dalzell, in his London riding clothes, and with his air of a reigning prince, warily turned with him. Guthrie Carey, in the waiting pony-carriage, had but one interest in the performance—his hopeful anticipation of a fatal, or at least a ridiculous, result.

      But there was no fear of that, and evidently Deb knew it. Sitting her own dancing chestnut, how her beautiful eyes glowed! She gloried in the ring of breathless witnesses to the prowess of her knight. Many a time did she scoff and scowl at the dandyisms which she deemed effeminate; this was one of the moments which showed the man as she desired him. Through those fine fingers, with the polished filbert nails, the shortened reins were drawn and held as by clamps of steel; so was the wild-eyed head by the lock of mane in the same hand. When no one was looking—although every eye believed itself fixed upon him—his left foot found its stirrup, his right gave a hop, and like lightning he had sprung up and round, without touching the horse until fairly down in the saddle; so that the animal was robbed of his best chance of getting the rider off, which is at the moment before he is quite on. No other chance was offered to the baffled one, although he kicked like a demon for nearly ten minutes.

      "I wish," Guthrie Carey ground through his strong teeth, "that the cranky beast would break his neck." It was not the beast's neck he meant.

      But Deb called: "Bravo! Well done, indeed!" and when the battle was over called the victor to her with her lovely face of pride and joy. Right willingly he went, and they sailed away together like the wind, and were lost to view. Yes, this was Dalzell's hour. She knew nothing of the brave deeds of sailor-men—common