"Oh, no; she's too big for that--she'd blush up to the temples; but never mind the girl or the fables. I told you that Peggy had reported your conduct, as we say in the service. Now do you know, that this very day I heard the first lieutenant speaking of it to the captain, and you've no idea how proud the captain looked, although he pretended to care nothing about it; I watched him, and he looked as much as to say, `that's my boy.'" "Well, if that pleases him, I'll make him prouder yet of me, if I have the opportunity," replied I. "That you will, Master Keene, if I'm any judge of fizonomy; and that's the way to go to a parent's heart: make him feel proud of you." I did not forget this, as the reader will eventually discover. I had written to my mother, giving her a long account of my adventures, but not saying a word of my having been at Chatham. I made her suppose, as I did the captain, that I had been carried up to London. My letter reached her the day after the one announcing my safety, written to her by Captain Delmar. She answered me by return of post, thanking Heaven for my preservation, and stating how great had been her anguish and misery at my supposed loss. In the latter part of the letter was this paragraph:-- "Strange to say, on the night of the 16th, when I was on my bed in tears, having but just received the news of your loss, your grandmother went downstairs, and declares that she saw you or your ghost in the little back parlour. At all events, I found her insensible on the floor, so that she must have seen something. She might have been frightened at nothing; and yet I know not what to think, for there are circumstances which almost make _me_ believe that somebody was in the house. I presume you can prove an _alibi_." That my mother had been suspicious, perhaps more than suspicious, from the disappearance of the letter, I was convinced. When I replied to her, I said:-- "My _alibi_ is easily proved by applying to the master and seamen of the vessel on board of which I was. Old granny must have been frightened at her own shadow: the idea of my coming to your house, and having left it without seeing you is rather too absurd; granny must have invented the story, because she hates me, and thought to make you do the same." Whatever my mother may have thought, she did not again mention the subject. I had, however, a few days afterwards, a letter from my aunt Milly, in which she laughingly told the same story of granny swearing that she had seen me or my ghost. "At first we thought it was your ghost, but since a letter from Captain Delmar to your mother has been missing, it is now imagined that you have been here, and have taken possession of it. You will tell me, my dearest Percival, I'm sure, if you did play this trick to granny, or not; you know you may trust me with any of your tricks."