"You've been over-tiring yourself, and to-night you'll just go off to bed early and leave the nursing to me. What didn' you know? That Tom was a scholar? A handsome scholar he'd have been, but for going to sea early when his father died. I wonder sometimes if he worries over it and the chances he missed. But Quebec's the postmark; and that means he's right and safe, thank the Lord! I don't fret so long as he's aboard a well-found ship. 'Twas his signing aboard the _One-and-All_--' Rosewarne's coffin,' they call her--that nigh broke me. He didn' let me know till two nights afore he sailed. 'Beggars can't be choosers,' he said; and afterwards I found out from Peter Benny that he'd covered his poor body with tattoo marks--his body that I've a-washed hundreds o' times, and loved to feel his legs kickin' agen' me. Beautiful skin he had as a child; soft as satin the feel of it, and not a blemish anywhere. 'Tis hard to think of it criss-crossed with them nasty marks. But there! thank the Lord God he's safe, this passage! Read me what he says, there's a kind soul; but you'll have to bear a child afore you know what I've a-been going through wi' that letter starin' me in the face." Hester, resting a shoulder against one of the oaken pillars of the gallery, where the sunshine touched her face with colour, broke the seal. "Here is an enclosure--a post-office order for fifty shillings." "God bless him! 'tis Welcome; though I could have made shift at a pinch. Peter Benny manages these things for me," said Mrs. Trevarthen, folding it lengthwise and inserting it between the buttons of her bodice. What she meant was that Mr. Benny as a rule attested her mark and brought her the money from the post-office. But Hester, busy with her own thoughts, scarcely heard. Why had Tom Trevarthen pretended to her that he could not write? Why had he trapped her into writing a letter for him--and to this Harriet, whoever she might be? She unfolded the letter and read, in bold, clear penmanship-- Quebec, 14th February 1872.