costume. It was as the barber had foretold. For all one could tell, he
had recovered already from the disease of hope; and only Miss Bessie
Carvil knew that he said nothing about his son's return because with him
it was no longer "next week," "next month," or even "next year." It was
"to-morrow."

In their intimacy of back yard and front garden he talked with her
paternally, reasonably, and dogmatically, with a touch of arbitrariness.
They met on the ground of unreserved confidence, which was authenticated
by an affectionate wink now and then. Miss Carvil had come to look
forward rather to these winks. At first they had discomposed her: the
poor fellow was mad. Afterwards she had learned to laugh at them: there
was no harm in him. Now she was aware of an unacknowledged, pleasurable,
incredulous emotion, expressed by a faint blush. He winked not in the
least vulgarly; his thin red face with a well-modelled curved nose, had
a sort of distinction--the more so that when he talked to her he looked
with a steadier and more intelligent glance. A handsome, hale, upright,
capable man, with a white beard. You did not think of his age. His son,
he affirmed, had resembled him amazingly from his earliest babyhood.

Harry would be one-and-thirty next July, he declared. Proper age to get
married with a nice, sensible girl that could appreciate a good home. He
was a very high-spirited boy. High-spirited husbands were the easiest
to manage. These mean, soft chaps, that you would think butter
wouldn't melt in their mouths, were the ones to make a woman thoroughly
miserable. And there was nothing like a home--a fireside--a good roof:
no turning out of your warm bed in all sorts of weather. "Eh, my dear?"

Captain Hagberd had been one of those sailors that pursue their calling
within sight of land. One of the many children of a bankrupt farmer, he