As Lucy advanced holding her dog lest[Pg 49] the creature should skip in a fit of excitement into the water, the man viewed her as though on catching her eye, or receiving the encouragement of a look of recognition, he was prepared to salute her. Perhaps she did not heed him, but on drawing close to the vessel, she looked at him, and thanks to that gracious gift which by creating opportunities for tact, helps more to render the individual beloved or popular than perhaps any other quality, she immediately recollected the man, and not only the man, but his name, as Mr John Eagle, mate of the Minorca, who, when the vessel was last in harbour and she had gone on board of her with her father, had been introduced to her by Captain Acton.,
"I know," she continued, still preserving her accent of scorn and viewing him with eyes that did not seem to be her's, so did she contrive to diminish the breadth of the beauty of the lids, so did she manage to look passions and feelings which the memory of her oldest friend could never have recalled as vitalising her brooding half-hooded gaze: "I know that this man came ashore and lived[Pg 284] upon his father who was poor, and drank and gambled until his name provoked nothing but a shrug, and that one day in a fit of pity, for which doubtless he has asked God's pardon, Captain Acton, who loves Admiral Lawrence, gave his poor creature of a son command of a ship. This I know," she said, letting her eyes fall suddenly from his face down upon her fingers, which she seemed to count as she proceeded. "But I had always supposed that there was some spirit of goodness left in Mr Walter Lawrence. I believed that though he might gamble and drink and live in idleness upon the bounty of his father, he with all his imperfections was a man incapable of outraging the feelings of a young girl, incapable of betraying the generous confidence of one who stood to him as a warm-hearted friend. Can you be that Mr Lawrence?" she said, peering at him in such a peculiar fashion, with such archness of contempt that a spectator, short-sighted and at a little distance, would have supposed she was looking at the handsome fellow through an eye-glass. "Oh, I am going mad to suppose it—mad to think it possible!",
Sunset was streaking the pine tops with spun gold and edging the gorgeous fabric with crimson ribbons; the big lake lay like an opal set in coral. Fishermen Shipley and Sward, seated on the bow of their old fish-boat, were idly watching the scene when Billy Wilson approached, hands in pockets and gravely surveyed them..
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