am here, Daddy, loving you: loving you _all to pieces_, you know!"

The old man was silent for a few minutes, caressing the little white
hands which lay like twin snowflakes in his broad, brown palm. Then
he resumed, cheerfully:

"And so, Cream Cheese from the dairy of Heaven, I kem home. Your old
Daddy kem home, and landed on the same wharf he'd sailed from
twenty-five years before. Not direct, you understand, but takin'
steamer from New York, and so on. Wal, there wa'n't nobody that knew
me, or cared for me. Father was dead, and his wife; and their
children, as weren't born when I sailed from home, were growed up
and gone away. No, there wa'n't nobody. Wal, I tried for a spell to
settle down and live like other folks, but 'twa'n't no use. I was'nt
used to the life, and I couldn't stand it. For ten years I haven't
heard the sound of a human voice, and now they was buzz, buzzin' all
the time; it seemed as if there was a swarm of wasps round my ears
the everlastin' day. Buzz! buzz! and then clack! clack! like an
everlasting mill-clapper; and folks starin' at my brown face and white
hair, and askin' me foolish questions. I couldn't stand it, that was
all. I heard that a light-keeper was wanted here, and I asked for
the place, and got it. And that's all of the first part, Peach
Blossom."

The child drew a long breath, and her face glowed with eager
anticipation. "And _now_, Daddy Captain," she said, "_now_ you may
say, 'Ten years ago this fall!'"

"Ten years ago this fall," said the Captain meekly acquiescing, "on
the fourteenth day of September, as ever was, I looks out from the