"Glad to meet you, sir, glad to meet you," cried the Captain in his bluff hearty way. "I've often heard of you, especially since Master Bob here has been down at Southsea." "Ah! I have to thank you for the kind way in which you've made their stay here pleasant for him and my little girl," rejoined the other warmly as the two shook hands. "But, there was little need, Captain Dresser, for my sister to introduce you. She's told me so much about you, that I seem to have known you already for years!" "Oh, yes," said the Captain; "your sister is one of my oldest friends." "What's that you're saying about my being an old friend?" exclaimed Mrs Gilmour, pretending to be indignant. "You speak as if I were an aged person; but, I'd have you to know, that, although I'm not quite a chicken, sure, I'm not as old as old Methuselah yet!" "No, no, I didn't mean that," chuckled the Captain; and turning to her brother he remarked on the likeness between him and Mrs Gilmour. "It is absolutely striking, by Jove!" "We're almost twins," replied he innocently; "only, I'm ten years older!" The Captain burst into a regular roar of laughter at this; his sides shaking and his face getting so red that it seemed as if he were going to have a fit of apoplexy. "By Jove!" he exclaimed, "you ought to be twins!" It was only then that the other perceived the slip he had made, as did his sister, and the two joined in the Captain's mirth; while Master Bob also lent his help, although witless of what the general merriment was about, the deep ho-ho-ho! of his father being even more contagious than the catching laugh of his old friend the Captain. "Sure, Dugald, you're the same careless fellow still," cried Mrs Gilmour, as soon as she was able to get out a word. "As me poor dear Ted used to say, you're an Irishman to the backbone. Sure you never open your mouth but you put your foot in it!" "That is what I'm always telling him, too," said her sister-in-law, whom the laughter in the hall, renewed with such force when Mrs Gilmour, in trying to set matters straight, made another Irish bull as big as her brother's, had brought out of the parlour, accompanied by Nellie. "Dugald is really incorrigible!" "That's just what Mrs Gilmour says I am," observed the Captain, bowing between his chuckles. "You must let me introduce myself. I don't need anybody to introduce you, ma'am; for I'm sure from your sweet soft voice alone that you are little missy's mother. She and I, you know, are sworn friends!" Mrs Strong smiled; and, if the Captain had called her voice a sweet one, he could find no words in which to describe the light that stole into her eyes, irradiating the face now. "I see you can pay compliments, Captain Dresser, although you are not an Irishman," she said pleasantly, caressing Nell, who in the joy of seeing her mother again had never left her side. "I suppose that's the reason this young lady has lost her heart to you?"