Half an hour later--it was a calm, moonlight night--Bernard rushed down eagerly into the saloon to find us. "Father and mother," he said, with a burst, "I want you up on deck for just ten minutes. There's something up there I should like so much to show you." "Not whales?" I asked, hypocritically, suppressing a smile. "No, not whales," he replied; "something much more interesting." We followed him blindly, Lucy much in doubt what the thing might be, and I much in wonder, after Mrs. Wade's letter, how Lucy might take it. At the top of the companion--ladder Melissa stood waiting for us, demure, but subdued, with a still timider look than ever upon that sweet, shrinking, small face of hers. Her heart beat hard, I could see by the movement of her bodice, and her breath came and went; but she stood there like a dove, in her dove-coloured travelling dress. "Mother," Bernard began, "Melissa's obliged to come back to America, don't you know, without having ever seen Naples. It seems a horrid shame she should miss seeing it. She hadn't money enough left, you recollect, to take her there." Lucy gazed at him, unsuspicious. "It does a pity," she answered, sympathetically. "She'd enjoy it so much. I'm sorry she hasn't been able to carry out all her programme." "And, mother," Bernard went on, his eyes fixed hard on hers, "how awfully she'd be thrown away on Kansas City! I can't bear to think of her going back to 'keep store' there." "For my part, I think it positively wicked," Lucy answered, with a smile, "and I can't think what--well, people in England are about, to allow her to do it." I opened my eyes wide. Did Lucy know what she was saying? Or had Melissa, then, fascinated her--the arch little witch!--as she had fascinated the rest of us? But Bernard, emboldened by this excellent opening, took Melissa by the hand as if in due form to present her. "Mother," he said, tenderly, leading the wee thing forward, "and father, too, THIS is what I wanted to show you--the girl I'm engaged to!" I paused and trembled. I waited for the thunderbolt. But no thunderbolt fell. On the contrary, Lucy stepped forward, and, under cover of the mast, caught Melissa in her arms and kissed her twice over. "My dear child," she cried, pressing her hard, "my dear little daughter, I don't know which of you two I ought most to congratulate." "But I do," Bernard murmured low. And, his father though I am, I murmured to myself, "And so do I, also." "Then you're not ashamed of me, mother dear," Melissa whispered, burying her dainty little bead on Lucy's shoulder, "because I kept store in Kansas City?" Lucy rose above herself in the excitement of the moment. "My darling wee daughter," she answered, kissing her tenderly again, "it's Kansas City alone that ought to be ashamed of itself for putting YOU to keep store--such a sweet little gem as you are!" VANDERDECKEN'S MESSAGE HOME; OR, THE TENACITY OF NATURAL AFFECTION (ANONYMOUS)