"Read them," she said, "and you will come for more. Oh, how I envy you having to begin at the very beginning, and not knowing one word of what is to come! I shall hear you laughing across the bay! Oh, yes, I will come and see your house one day; but I can come no further as I am, and here is the gate." "One moment, ma'am," said the major, glancing at a man who was at work in the front garden, and lowering his voice. "A convict?" "Yes." "A gentleman convict, as they say, by the cut of him," muttered the major; "and that's the very worst sort. Look you, madam, if that fellow gives you the slightest trouble, you let me know." "What could you do?" "Get him fifty lashes!" replied the major vindictively. "I should have mentioned that I happen to be a magistrate of the colony. You may bring your man before me in my own house any day you like, and for the first piece of impudence he shall have his fifty. I also happen to possess some private influence with the Governor. I need hardly say that it would be my privilege to use it in your interest, could you but show me the way." "You have influence with the Governor?" cried the widow, with an animation which she had not hitherto displayed, and which vastly enhanced her charms. "Then get my poor gardener, not fifty lashes, but his ticket-of-leave!" The other gazed upon her with kindling admiration, and a pleasant, smiling tolerance. "A philanthropist!" said he. "An enthusiast in philanthropy! Only wait, my dear lady, until you've been out here a little longer. Why, I shall have the fellow before me in a week!" And taking off his hat as he spoke, the major jerked his bald head in the direction of the convict gardener, and departed chuckling; but turned more thoughtful on the way, and reached home walking slowly, his yellow face ploughed with thought. Major Blacker was sixty years of age, but he never considered himself an old man, and now of a sudden he felt full ten years younger. He consulted his glass when he got in; the climate had dried him up a little; but there were black hairs in his whiskers yet, and a youthful glitter in his mirrored eyes which he hoped had not been wanting in the late interview. Major Blacker had lived; and now the desire was come to him to live a little more. Turning from the mirror to his bedroom window he beheld the smoke of the widow's cottage making a grey lane through the sunset; in between and down below the fretted floor of the bay was rosy indeed from shore to shore; overhead an incredible blue was fast changing to richest purple. And to such accompaniments of the eye, and in blood as cold as you please, the major's mind was made up.