maybe it 'ud come in handy, if she wor to wed me 'twixt this week and
next. _He_ shan't have her with his ugly face. But she wouldn't
look at him. She said to-night that it worn't for her ever to wed, but
maybe as I can bring her round. I'll find another berth next week, and
I'll speak to Hester to-morrow, and a deal can be done in a week. She
said she didn't love me, but--who knows? Bet's a wild one, and a
desperate earnest one. Ef she could bring herself to say just once,
'I love you, Will.' it 'ud be as good from her as if she said it every
day. It's once and always with Bet. Well, I shouldn't ha' stayed now
ef Dent hadn't let out that he meant to make up to her. Dent shan't
cross her path if I can help it. She's the bravest lass in Liverpool,
and the handsomest to look at; and I'll have her, if fortune will favor
me, and the good God above help me. 'I don't love you, Will,' she said;
but for that matter, Barbara Allen said much the same, and yet she
died for love arter all. When I think of that, and remember how Bet's
eyes lit up, and how pitiful she looked, when I sang of Barbara Allen,
I ain't sorry as Dent has got my berth. A week off the ocean wave ain't
too much to give up for the sake of Bet Granger."




CHAPTER VI.


Hester Wright was a popular, but by no means, in the usual acceptance
of the word, a specially good woman. She was the reverse of
strait-laced; her morals were nothing in particular, and her ideas on
all subjects, whether on righteousness or wickedness, the broadest of
the broad. She went neither to church nor chapel on Sundays--she