and engravings torn from old books, marked up at "a penny apiece, and take your choice." The roar of voices from this busy mart came to the Captain's ears, subdued and, sounding like the soft lapping of the sea, added to the peacefulness of the quiet street. How it was that Lily's grandfather asked "What ship?" when the stranger announced himself as a Captain, he could not have explained. But it may be rightly surmised that it was prompted by his sympathy with Pollypod, and by his gladness that she was not to be disappointed. When Lily heard the Captain's voice--which most surely have been unfamiliar to her, it was so gruff--she relinquished Pollypod's hand, and softly went to her seat. There are some moments which are very precious to us; now and again in our lives visions of pure happiness come, and, indistinct and undefinable as they are, we forget all else for the time; and with awe and gladness resign ourselves to influences which fill the present with peace and joy. Such times are the stars in our life's record, and the memory of them never dies. Pollypod, standing by the Captain's side, exclaimed with tearful joy, "I'm the little girl." "And I'm the Captain." "I knew you would come!" (Her voice was so full and rich, that it was a pleasure to hear it.) "Felix said you would, and he saw you such a long way off. You _have_ brought her!" "Yes, here she is in my arms, little one. Dressed." "In what?" "Mauve silk, I think she told me." "O!" A volume of words could not have expressed more. "Hold hard!" cried the Captain, as he heard the scraping of a match against a box, and guessed that it was intended to light up. "Let us talk in the dark a bit." He knew that there were two persons, an old man and a little girl, present besides himself, and the momentary flash of the match, as it was drawn across the sand-paper, did not reveal to him a third, for Lily was sitting in the darkest shadow of the room, and he was not looking that way. The old man readily assented to the proposition to talk in the dark a bit, and the shadows of the peaceful summer night lay about the room undisturbed. But the Captain appearing to consider that his proposition was too abruptly made, and scarcely justifiable, he being a stranger and almost an intruder, added immediately, "That is, if you have no objection, and if you will pardon me for suggesting it." "No apology is necessary," replied the old man, "from one accredited as you are, and coming on such an errand." "It's a Captain's fancy," said the stranger. "And it's yours by right, as Captain of the Fancy," observed the old man, in a gentle and courteous tone.