"Let her talk, my clear," said Uncle Luke, "it doesn't hurt any one. Don't talk nonsense, Van's wife. What use could you make of her? She is like the thistle that grows up behind my place, a good-looking prickly plant, with a ball of down for a head. Let her be; you always get the worst of it. The more you excite her the more that head of hers sends out floating downy seeds to settle here and there and do mischief. She has spoiled my nephew Harry, and nearly spoiled my niece." "Don't you believe it, Mr Leslie," cried Madelaine, with a long earnest look in her eyes. "Quite true, Miss Impudence," continued Uncle Luke. "Always was a war between me and the useless plants." "Well, I can't sit here silent and listen to such heresy," cried Mrs Van Heldre, shaking her head. "Surely, Luke Vine, you don't call yourself a useful plant." "Bless my soul, ma'am, then I suppose I'm a weed?" "Not you," said Van Heldre, forcing a show of interest in the conversation. "Yes, old fellow, I am," said Uncle Luke, holding his sherry up to the light, and sipping it as if he found real enjoyment therein. "I suppose I am only a weed, not a thistle, like Margaret up yonder, but a tough-rooted, stringy, matter-of-fact old nettle, who comes up quietly in his own corner, and injures no one so long as people let him alone." "No, no, no, no!" said Madelaine emphatically. "Quite right, Miss Van Heldre," said Leslie. "Hear, hear!" cried Van Heldre. "Stir me up, then, and see," cried the old man grimly. "More than one person has found out before now how I can sting, and--Hallo! what's wrong? You here?" There had been a quick step in the long passage, and, without ceremony, the door was thrown open, Harry Vine entering, to stand in the gathering gloom hatless and excited. He was about to speak, Van Heldre having sprung to his feet, when the young man's eyes alighted on Leslie and Madelaine seated side by side at the table, and the flash of anger which mounted to his brain drove everything else away. "What is it?" cried Van Heldre hoarsely. "Do you hear?--speak!" "There is a brig on the Conger Rock," said Harry quickly, as if roused to a recollection of that which he had come to say. "Yes, sir," cried another voice, as old Crampton suddenly appeared. "And the man has just run up to the office with the news, for--" "Well, man, speak out," said Van Heldre, whose florid face was mottled with patches of ghastly white. "They think it's ours." "I felt it coming," groaned Van Heldre, as he rushed into the hall, Leslie following quickly. As he hurriedly threw on his waterproof a hand caught his, and turning, it was to see Madelaine looking up imploringly in his eyes. "My father, Mr Leslie. Keep him out of danger, pray!" "Trust me. I'll do my best," said the young man quickly; and then he awoke to the fact that Harry Vine was beside him, white with anger, an anger which seemed to make him dumb.