"And your little heart did throb a little, and sink for a day, when this playfellow was shipped off for life, as you thought, and you _did_ remember his funeral tears over his owl, and"--a quaver of voice and betrayed earnestness revealed the jealous pang shooting across the heart of the speaker; but her own was too heavy and deeply anxious to prolong this desultory talk. She only added--"Heaven knows how little I thought that poor stranger boy would ever grow to be what he is to me now." "_What he is to you?_ Why, what then is he, Winifred?" "The horror of my thoughts, my dreams, my"----she answered sobbing. "But why should I say so? Wicked I am to feel him so, if he is _indeed_ to be the saviour of my dear, dear father!" And she turned away to shed relieving tears. "And this little packet contains my letters--_all_, does it?" he asked, touching the small parcel she had deposited within a cleft of the hollow river-side tree, by which they stood, the post-office of their happier days, where, concealed by thick moss gathered from the bole, those letters had every one been searched for and found--with what a leap of heart, first felt! how fondly thrust into her bosom, for the leisure delight of opening at home--and all in vain! "All but one," she answered tremulously; "I brought then because you bade me--but you were so angry _then_--let me take them back?" and she clutched them eagerly. "At least we may wait, David--we don't know yet; I do suspect that Lewis Lewis--he shuns me as if he was conscious of some wickedness; he's as horrid to me as his master--the thought of his master--I do forbode something awful from that man! It was but just before I heard you brushing among those great low branches, in your coracle, that I fancied I saw him stealing, as if to watch, or perhaps waylay you; but I am full of dismal thoughts."