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The breakfast bell at this moment summoned them from the lawn. At table Captain Acton said that he had asked Mr Lawrence to meet him at his office down on the quay at half-past ten. This office was in a little house a few minutes' walk from the warehouses. Captain Acton employed a person who looked after his affairs, who, with the assistance of a[Pg 82] couple of clerks, saw to the delivery and loading of cargoes, to the needs of the ships in respect of gear, canvas, carpenters' and boatswains' stores, and so forth. But not the less did the gallant Captain take an interest in his own business. He was laudably anxious to promote the prosperity of Old Harbour and Old Harbour Town, but though he was a rich man—a very rich man indeed in those days, having come into a fortune of eighty thousand pounds, together with the finely wooded and beautiful freehold estate known as Old Harbour House—he was by no means disposed to lose money in marine speculation; so he kept a keen eye upon the books, examined narrowly all the demands which were made for the ship's furniture, closely watched the markets in rum, sugar, and coffee, and having a clear perception of the risks of war, justly appraised the value of his tonnage to those who desired consignments through his bottoms. Captain Acton left the room to refresh himself with a change of apparel, and returned after a brief absence. He was a man of considerable but not powerful self-control. He entered the room with a face that indicated a certain resolution of mind, and said to his sister: "I have been thinking, perhaps, that we have been unnecessarily flurried and somewhat hurried in our conjecture and efforts. I believe I have done well in giving all possible publicity to the fact that Lucy left her home this morning and has not returned. But when I come to reflect that even now it is not twelve hours since she started on her early walk, I consider that she has not been long enough absent to cause us the bitter anxiety we have felt and are feeling. Suppose after visiting the person from whom she received the letter, she breakfasted with a friend on the other side of Old Harbour Town. This friend may have induced her to stop to dinner; a drive might follow. There are hundreds of things in this business which when explained would seem perfectly reasonable, so that at any moment she may turn up and tell us the story of her day's outing, and wonder that we should be so troubled because of an absence that she makes perfectly comprehensible. I shall hold[Pg 201] to this view," he continued firmly, "until the night is advanced. If she does not return to-night then we must take further steps to-morrow." After a few airy nothings of salutation and the like had been exchanged and all were seated, Captain Acton said: "Lucy, I am now to introduce Mr Lawrence to you in a new character; he is the captain of the Minorca.".
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Conrad
Billy climbed the rail fence and crossed the basswood swale to the highland. He approached the beech grove cautiously and peered about him. Seated on a log at the lower end of a grassy glade was a boy about his own age, a boy with round, bullet head poised on a thick neck set between square shoulders. "You have been half-starved in that brig," said Captain Acton, searching his daughter's face, and running his eyes over her dress. Her natural colour had not wholly faded from her cheek, but the bloom was very faint indeed, once removed only perhaps from pallor, so that her eyes, which in the full glow of her beauty were as a sorceress's for liquid softness and the lambent lights of passions and emotions, making one think of a dark midnight sea illuminated by the moon, gathered a keenness of outline, a vitality of colour and play which of themselves would have suffered her to pass as the mad girl she was or figured to be. "She was carryin' the big meat-platter on her arm an' she fell with her arm under her—an' broke it.".
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