"Oh, go 'long! with your shawls and your pins! You wait another month and Ay'll be kicking may heels about on the quay free from all these old women's shawls and dressing-gowns and things. Now, you go and call the young man up." And Valmai went and soon returned, bringing Cardo with her. "Well, Mr. Gwyn, and how are you? Very glad to see you, sir, under may roof. Hope you slept well, and that the lil gel has given you a good breakfast." "Oh, first rate, sir," said Cardo, shaking hands and taking the chair which Valmai placed for him beside the bed. "Well, now, here's a quandary, the _Burrawalla_ is in! but it's an ill wind that blows nobody any good, and since you must be delayed, Ay'm very glad it has landed you here." "The delay is of no consequence to me; and it's a wind I shall bless all my life." "Well, Ay don't know what Captain Owen would say to that nor the owners nayther. They wouldn't join in your blessings, I expect." Cardo felt he had made a mistake, and looked at Valmai for inspiration. "Mr. Wynne was rather hurried away, uncle, so he was not sorry to come back." Cardo nodded his thanks to Valmai, and the captain and he were soon chatting unconstrainedly, and when at last Cardo accepted a cigar from a silver case which the captain drew from under his pillow, his conquest of the old man's heart was complete. "If Ay _am_ cooped up here in bed," he said, "Ay'm not going to be denied may smoke, nor yet may glass of toddy, though the doctor trayed hard to stop it. 'Shall Ay mix it a little weaker, sir?' sez Jim Harris. None of your tarnished nonsense, Ay sez, you mix it as usual. Ay've stuck to my toddy (just one glass or two at naight) for the last thirty years, and it's not going to turn round on me, and do me harm now. Eh, Mr. Gwyn?" Cardo lighted his cigar with an apology to Valmai. "Oh, she's used to it," said the captain, "and if she don't like it, she can go downstairs; you'll want to see about Mr. Gwyn's dinner, may dear." "No, no, sir," said Cardo, "certainly not. I dine every day with all the other passengers on board the _Burrawalla_. I shall come back to my tea, and I hope your niece will always sit down to her tea and breakfast with me." "Oh, well, if you laike. She's quaite fit to sit down with any nobleman in the land." Later on in the day, Valmai, sitting on the window-seat reading out to her uncle from the daily paper, suddenly laid it aside. "Rather a dull paper to-day, uncle!" "Yes, rather, may dear; but you are not reading as well as usual;" and she wasn't, for in truth she was casting about in her mind for a good opening for her confession to her uncle. "Suppose you sing me a song, may dear!" And she tried-- "By Berwen's banks my love hath strayed For many a day in sun and shade, And as she carolled loud and clear The little birds flew down to hear."