"And I care nought at all for the money," he said to himself. "Only 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 professed no religion, although when pressed on the point she would not admit that it worn't there. "May be it wor," she would say, only she had no time for it just now. She did not blame people for going to the public-house, although she never went herself, simply because that special place did not suit her special temperament; but she was extremely fond of spending her evenings at the penny theatres, or other cheap and decidedly low places of entertainment. There she would enjoy herself, looking on with eager interest at the coarse and gaudy representations of so-called "life." She would never laugh loudly, however, or applaud noisily, although she encouraged and smiled at those who did. She was very poor, but she was always neat in her person; and the expression in her big black eyes gave her a look a little above her station, so that, although she was not handsome, those who saw her once often turned to glance at her again. Wherever she went, in whatever company she found herself, she was invariably good-natured. Indeed, although she was not in the least aware of the fact, she was a most unselfish person. If a tired-out and hard-worked mother was seen pushing her way to the front at Hester's favorite theatre, The Cleopatra, Hester invariably resigned her own seat in her