This missive he read over twice, made an addition to the paragraph dealing most particularly with the mortgage on which he had been invited to lend, and then carefully folded the square post-paper he used in old-fashioned letter shape, tucking one end into the other from objects of economy, so as to dispense with envelopes, but necessitating all the same the use of sealing-wax and a light. However, it pleased him to think that he was saving, and he lit a very thin candle, took the stick of red wax from a drawer, a curious old-fashioned signet gold ring bearing the family crest from a nail where it hung over the fireplace, and then, sitting down as if to some very important piece of business, he burned his wax, laid on a liberal quantity, and then impressed the seal. This done, the ring was hung once more upon its nail, and the old man stood gazing at it and thinking. The next minute he took down the ring, and slipped it on one of his fingers, and worked it up and down, trying it on another finger, and then going back to the first. "Used to fit too tightly," he said: "now one's fingers are little more than bone." He held up the ring to the light, his white hand looking very thin and wasted, and the worn gold glistened and the old engraved blood-stone showed its design almost as clearly as when it was first cut. "`Roy et Foy!'" muttered the old man, reading the motto beneath the crest. "Bit of vanity. Margaret asked where it was, last time I saw her. Let's see; I lost you twice, once when I wore you as I was fishing off the pier, and once on the black rock you slipped off my bony finger, and each time the sea washed you into a crack." He smiled as he gazed at the ring, and there was a pleasant, handsome trace of what he had been as a young man in his refined features. "Please the young dog--old family ring," he muttered. "Might sell it and make a pound. No, he may have it when I'm gone. Can't be so very long." He hung the ring upon the nail once more, and spent the rest of the afternoon gazing out to sea, sometimes running over the past, but more often looking out for the glistening and flashing of the sea beneath where a flock of gulls were hovering over some shoal of fish. It was quite evening when there was a staid, heavy step and the click of nailed boots as the old fish-woman came toiling up the cliff-path, her basket on her back, and the band which supported it across her brow. "Any fish to sell, Master Vine?" she said in a sing-song tone. "I looked down the pier, but you weren't there." "How could I be there when I'm up here, Poll Perrow?" "Ah, to be sure; how could you?" said the old woman, trying to nod her head, but without performing the feat, on account of her basket. "Got any fish to sell?" "No. Yes," said the old man. "That's right. I want some to-night. Will you go and fetch it?"