She stopped on the stairs, hesitating. Whereupon the Captain hastily
ripped open the bundle under his arm and produced a very handsome India
shawl. With a cry of delight Virginia threw it over her shoulders and ran
to the long glass between the high windows.

"Who spoils her, Lige?" asked the Colonel, fondly.

"Her father, I reckon," was the prompt reply.

"Who spoils you, Jinny?"

"Captain Lige," said she, turning to him. "If you had only kept the
presents you have brought me from New Orleans, you might sell out your
steamboat and be a rich man."

"He is a rich man," said the Colonel, promptly. "Did you ever miss
bringing her a present, Lige?" he asked.

"When the Cora Anderson burnt," answered the Captain.

"Why," cried Virginia, "you brought me a piece of her wheel, with the
char on it. You swam ashore with it."

"So I did," said Captain Brent. "I had forgotten that. It was when the
French dress, with the furbelows, which Madame Pitou had gotten me from
Paris for you, was lost."

"And I think I liked the piece of wheel better," says Virginia. "It was
brought me by a brave man, the last to leave his boat."