Dicky and I were favourites of his; for though he kept us in order, and more than once had inflicted a sound cobbing on my chum (certainly well deserved), he was very kind to us. "I say, Stallman, can you tell me who the young lady is with whom Mr Vernon is dancing?" said I. "Why do you ask?" he inquired. "Because she is very beautiful," I replied. The colour heightened on his generally impassive, well-bronzed features, as his eye fell on the lady whom I indicated. "Yes," he answered, with a firm voice, "that lady is Miss Blanche Norman, the daughter of Major Norman, who is out here for his health. But wouldn't you like to dance, youngster?" I told him that I had been engaged by the captain to dance with Miss Smaitch Number 2. "Well, come to me if you want a partner," he said, and moved on. I saw him soon afterwards go up and shake hands with Miss Norman. His lip momentarily quivered, I saw; but his countenance otherwise remained firm. She received him as an old acquaintance, and seemed glad to see him. I took it into my head that Adam was in love with her, or had been; but that, as he had little besides his pay to depend on, he could not indulge a dream of marrying. From what I afterwards learned, I was right in this conjecture. Poor fellow! he had loved her well and deeply, but he had never told his love. She might have suspected his attachment, but with the tact and delicacy of a right-minded woman, she did not allow him to discover that she did so, but endeavoured, by the frank kindness of her words and manner, to take away the bitterness from the wound she was inflicting. I do not mean to say, however, that at the time I knew this, but I made a pretty shrewd guess at the truth. In a little time Dicky came hurrying up to me with a look full of importance. "I say, D'Arcy, I've found out all about it. I heard our medico tell Old Nip (meaning the purser) that Vernon proposed a few days ago to Miss Norman, and was accepted; so they are regularly engaged, you know, and he has a right to dance with her as often as he likes. What fun for him! I know that I should like to be in his place. That's her father: not the tall man with the white hair, but the shorter one next him. He looks almost too young to be her father, doesn't he? Perhaps his being ill makes him look so. They are soon going home; but they are to stop at Gibraltar, so the doctor says." "I am afraid you've been an eavesdropper, Dicky, to hear all this," I observed; "and that, you know, is not a very creditable character." "I know that as well as you do," he answered; "but I could not help myself, for I was jammed up in the refreshment room between two fat Maltese ladies and the supper-table, and I couldn't have moved without the risk of staving in their sides with my elbows. Old Nip and the medico were on the other side of them, sipping their negus, and didn't see me."