Joe and Patsey sat suspiciously close together. They were both very quiet. “If I were going to be married at Christmas, I wonder if I should find no more to talk about than Joe and Patsey,” Lettice thought. But she did not know that the wedding day was an indefinite matter, and that Joe had just informed his sweetheart that he should, in a few days, take command of one of his father’s clippers, and that his business would be to harass English vessels whenever he could. “I’d like to meet that wretched thief who stole Pat Flynn,” he said; “I’d make him suffer for it.” But Patsey was silent. Privateering for her Joe! The uncertainty of the sea was bad enough, but add to that the dangers of warfare, and it was too much. The girl’s heart was very full; she could only let her hand lie in Joe’s strong clasp, and be thankful for the present, for the future seemed suddenly to slip into an impenetrable cloud. At first Joe had urged an immediate marriage, but Patsey shook her head. “You’ll be back by Christmas?” she faltered. “Surely, unless--” His clasp on Patsey’s hand tightened, and he had no further words. The little craft rounded Love’s Point and turned into the waters of the Chester River. “Your uncle promises me some rare sport during the shooting season down here. The country is a very paradise, not only because of its delights, but because of the angelic beings who dwell here,” Mr. Clinton remarked sentimentally to Lettice. “Angels?” laughed Lettice. “Do you perhaps mean ghosts? The darkies are dreadfully afraid of them, and won’t go near our graveyard.” “Have you a special graveyard of your own?” “Yes, haven’t you? Ours is such a quiet, dim little corner of the plantation. It is all moss-grown, and the trees are so thick and green there.” “Will you show it to me some day?” “Yes, if you like; but I don’t believe I’d care to go there at night myself.” “Not if I were with you? Surely, you’d not be afraid then.” “You couldn’t keep off haunts,” returned Lettice. “Don’t let’s talk of them, it makes me creepy. I like the place in the daytime, when the sun shines in between the leaves and flickers down on the headstones. It is pleasant to go there then, and lie in the long grass, only I always like to have Lutie, even then.” “And who is Lutie?” “My maid. She belonged to my mother, and was given to me when I was born.” “And your mother?” “She lies in the graveyard; so does my little sister. My eldest brother’s headstone is there, too.” Lettice gave a sigh; she always did when she spoke of this brother; a wild young fellow who had been a trial to his family, and who one day set off for Norfolk with a set of roistering fellows, as feather-brained as himself, and had fallen overboard. A stone to his memory had been set up in the family burying-ground, although his body had never been recovered. This loss was the shock which hastened his mother’s death, and the family rarely spoke of him.