"'Oh, you dear!' said Mrs. Carkeek as we embraced: and this was as close to familiarity as she allowed herself to go in the whole course of my acquaintance with her. "I spent three years at Tresillack, and all that while Mrs. Carkeek lived with me and shared the secret. Few women, I dare to say, were ever so completely wrapped around with love as we were during those three years. It ran through my waking life like a song: it smoothed my pillow, touched and made my table comely, in summer lifted the heads of the flowers as I passed, and in winter watched the fire with me and kept it bright. "'Why did I ever leave Tresillack?' Because one day, at the end of five years, Farmer Hosking brought me word that he had sold the house--or was about to sell it; I forget which. There was no avoiding it, at any rate; the purchaser being a Colonel Kendall, a brother of the old Squire.' "'A married man?' I asked. "'Yes, miss; with a family of eight. As pretty children as ever you see, and the mother a good lady. It's the old home to Colonel Kendall.' "'I see. And that is why you feel bound to sell.' "'It's a good price, too, that he offers. You mustn't think but I'm sorry enough--' "'To turn me out? I thank you, Mr. Hosking; but you are doing the right thing.' "Since Mrs. Carkeek was to stay, the arrangement lacked nothing of absolute perfection--except, perhaps, that it found no room for me. "'_She_--Margaret-will be happy,' I said; 'with her cousins, you know.' "'Oh yes, miss, she will be happy, sure enough,' Mrs. Carkeek agreed. "So when the time came I packed up my boxes, and tried to be cheerful. But on the last morning, when they stood corded in the hall, I sent Mrs. Carkeek upstairs upon some poor excuse, and stepped alone into the pantry. "'Margaret!' I whispered. "There was no answer at all. I had scarcely dared to hope for one. Yet I tried again, and, shutting my eyes this time, stretched out both hands and whispered: "'Margaret!' "And I will swear to my dying day that two little hands stole and rested--for a moment only--in mine." THE LADY OF THE SHIP [_Or so much as is told of her by Paschal Tonkin, steward and major-domo to the lamented John Milliton, of Pengersick Castle, in Cornwall: of her coming in the Portugal Ship, anno 1526; her marriage with the said Milliton and alleged sorceries; with particulars of the Barbary men wrecked in Mount's Bay and their entertainment in the town of Market Jew._]