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"Well ladies, and your honours," the sailor said, "when I felt the boat go over I stuck to her, and never left go. I soon got my head above water, and clambered on to her bottom. I had hardly got my breath, before I saw a head come out of the water close by me. I held on to the keel with my hook, leaned over, and caught him by the hair, and helped him on to the boat beside me. That was Mr. Robert Harmer. I looked round again, and thought I saw an arm come up for a moment, but that was all I saw of any of them, and I don't think one of them ever came up after she upset. Mr. Robert Harmer was very weak, but he clung with me for nigh ten minutes, sometimes washed nearly off, and getting weaker and weaker every minute, and I saw he could not last long. We did not speak, the waves and the wind were too high, and we were half the time under water; but I could see the poor gentleman was praying very hard. At last a big wave came over all, and nearly carried me off, and I had a hard fight to get back again. When I had time to look round, Mr. Robert Harmer was gone, and that was the last I ever saw of him. Which I am ready to take my davy."

Polly and Harry were both silent. Polly was crying fast now��crying, that her little scheme for my happiness had failed; but yet they both felt as I did, and she could urge nothing further.

"Yes, Miss Harmer; when I called here the day before yesterday, Dr. Sadman gave me the details of them, so far as he knew."

"Will you not reconsider the proposal we made?"

Mr. Harmer was extremely anxious that his son should marry early and well; not well in a worldly point of view, but to some true woman, to whom he could look up, and who would in time correct the faults of his character. Those faults his father saw and understood; and he feared much that his weak and facile disposition would render him liable to fall into serious errors and faults, and would be not unlikely to lead him to be entrapped into some hasty marriage, the evil consequences of which might be incalculable to him. Mr. Harmer therefore watched with anxiety to see to which, among the various young girls of the neighbourhood, Gerald was most attracted, and at first he gave his father some little trouble. New to female society, it possessed an infinite charm to him; but he seemed to admire too generally to devote himself to any one in particular, and although he at once commenced a series of active flirtations, he appeared quite unable to single out any one for especial preference. Les absents ont toujours tort; and the converse of the proverb seemed to him to be equally true��the present are always right. Whosoever might chance to be in his society would assuredly, for the time being, appear to approach the nearest to perfection. Gerald Harmer was certainly a much greater favourite with the girls than he was with their fathers and brothers. That languid, indolent way of his, as if he rather thought that it was the duty of other people to devote themselves to his amusement, and which made the men vote him a puppy, was to them quite new and very amusing. Girls, too, rather like occasionally reversing positions, and bestowing homage instead of receiving it; and so the lively country girls enjoyed these languid flirtations with Gerald, and entered into them with great spirit, laughing in their sleeves, perhaps, at him while they did so, and not being in the least likely to become the victims of any very ardent passion.

At last she became more calm, stopped before him, and said, "Dr. Ashleigh, you were our brother's greatest friend; may I ask you to see to all arrangements connected with his funeral. We should wish him to be buried in such state as is becoming to the last of an old race. Alas! that he cannot be laid where his fore-fathers have been! Will you see to all this?"

"Does your tanyard pay?"

"Now," he said, "the council is begun; let my sisters speak."

"Miss Harmer," papa said very quietly, "you have had much to agitate and trouble you, and I am not therefore surprised at your thus fixing upon him; indeed in the way you put it, it does seem reasonable; but I believe that you will regret your hastiness when I tell you that you are actually accusing a dead man."

I have as yet said nothing about my own feelings during these three months, nor told how I bore the loss. At first I felt it very, very much. I made sure the will was gone for ever; and although I had concerted with Harry our plan to find the secret chamber, and pretended to believe in it, I did so with the same feeling with which, as a child, one pretends a chair is a ship, and makes voyages upon it; shouting as lustily as if on board a real vessel, apparently quite as anxious if an imaginary wind arises and threatens to wreck our bark, and making our escape on to the sofa, which represents a desert island, with as much joy as if our rescue had been all real.