pussy's in the garden asleep, and I can't wake her.' So I just took
him out for a walk; there was a circus in the town, and I took him
to it. It so filled his mind that he quite forgot the cat. Next day he
asked for her. I did not tell him she was buried in the garden, I
just said she must have run away. In a week he had forgotten all
about her--children soon forget."

"Ay, that's true," said the sea captain. "But 'pears to me they must
learn some time they've got to die."

"Should I pay the penalty before we reach land, and be cast into
that great, vast sea, I would not wish the children's dreams to be
haunted by the thought: just tell them I've gone on board another
ship. You will take them back to Boston; I have here, in a letter,
the name of a lady who will care for them. Dicky will be well off,
as far as worldly goods are concerned, and so will Emmeline. Just
tell them I've gone on board another ship-- children soon forget."

"I'll do what you ask," said the seaman.

The moon was over the horizon now, and the Northumberland
lay adrift in a river of silver. Every spar was distinct, every reef
point on the great sails, and the decks lay like spaces of frost cut
by shadows black as ebony.

As the two men sat without speaking, thinking their own
thoughts, a little white figure emerged from the saloon hatch. It
was Emmeline. She was a professed sleepwalker--a past
mistress of the art.