‘No!’ returned Ruth in her low clear voice. ‘I sent for you that you might read a letter—how obtained I leave you to guess—which concerns us both. Have you the means of doing so?’ ‘Catch me without light, Missy!’ complacently replied the seaman, drawing from one of his deep coat-pockets a small dark-lantern, which he lighted. ‘Now for this letter,’ he said; and receiving it from Ruth’s hand, read it attentively twice over. As he did so, some rays from the shaded lantern that he held illumined his resolute face. ‘Wilkins, eh? Enoch Wilkins. That’s the name the craft hails by; and he’s a land-shark, it seems,’ muttered Hold, as he refolded the document. ‘He is a London lawyer, as you see,’ explained Ruth; ‘and all I know of him, gleaned from various sources, is that he was the captain’s creditor for a large sum, which Sir Sykes has very recently paid. He is, I gather, a sort of turf solicitor of no very good repute, and has somehow a grip on poor weak Sir Sykes. Now the baronet, I feel sure, has but one secret’—— ‘That, you may be certain of!’ interjected Hold. ‘And this man knows it and trades on it,’ said the baronet’s ward eagerly; ‘and in doing so his path crosses ours. See! The word “others,” which is underlined, must surely have reference to you and me. Rely on it, he has an inkling of our plans, and may counteract them.’ ‘Take the wind out of my sails, will he, eh?’ said Hold grimly, and with a threatening gesture. ‘Brother Dick, Brother Dick, when will you learn wisdom!’ said his sister, smiling. ‘Your buccaneer tricks of clenched fist and angry frown are as out of place in peaceable England as it would be to strut about with pistols and cutlass. You are not on the West Coast now, or off the Isle of Pines, or in the Straits of Malacca, to carry things with a high hand. Our plain course is to make an ally, not an enemy of this lawyer. He knows much, but perhaps not all, and may be induced to accept as true the story that has been told to Sir Sykes. In any case, he cannot be very scrupulous; and will not be desirous, by bringing about a dispute and a scandal, to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs. The baronet’s purse is deep enough for all of us.’ ‘You’re right!’ rejoined the sailor, with a whistle that was meant to express unbounded admiration for his sister’s shrewdness. ‘I’ll make tracks to London, and see what terms can be made with Commodore Wilkins, before he shews his face here.’ ‘Tell him nothing that he does not know,’ said Ruth, as the pair separated. ‘Trust me for that!’ was Hold’s confident reply. Jasper, still at his window, caught but a glimpse of the girl’s slight form as it glided by and re-entered the house. _To be continued._ RECOLLECTIONS OF THE IRISH BAR.