"You'll have that priceless opportunity to-night," retorted Miss Virginia, as she flung herself out of the room. "Pa has made me invite him to my party." "Here, Jinny! Hold on!" cried the Captain, running after her. "I've got something for you." She stopped on the stairs, hesitating. Whereupon the Captain hastily ripped open the bundle under his arm and produced a very handsome India shawl. With a cry of delight Virginia threw it over her shoulders and ran to the long glass between the high windows. "Who spoils her, Lige?" asked the Colonel, fondly. "Her father, I reckon," was the prompt reply. "Who spoils you, Jinny?" "Captain Lige," said she, turning to him. "If you had only kept the presents you have brought me from New Orleans, you might sell out your steamboat and be a rich man." "He is a rich man," said the Colonel, promptly. "Did you ever miss bringing her a present, Lige?" he asked. "When the Cora Anderson burnt," answered the Captain. "Why," cried Virginia, "you brought me a piece of her wheel, with the char on it. You swam ashore with it." "So I did," said Captain Brent. "I had forgotten that. It was when the French dress, with the furbelows, which Madame Pitou had gotten me from Paris for you, was lost." "And I think I liked the piece of wheel better," says Virginia. "It was brought me by a brave man, the last to leave his boat." "And who should be the last to leave, but the captain? I saw the thing in the water; and I just thought we ought to have a relic." "Lige," said the Colonel, putting up his feet, "do you remember the French toys you used to bring up here from New Orleans?" "Colonel," replied Brent, "do you recall the rough and uncouth young citizen who came over here from Cincinnati, as clerk on the Vicksburg?" "I remember, sir, that he was so promising that they made him provisional captain the next trip, and he was not yet twenty-four years of age." "And do you remember buying the Vicksburg at the sheriff's sale for twenty thousand dollars, and handing her over to young Brent, and saying, 'There, my son, she's your boat, and you can pay for her when you like'?" "Shucks, Brent!" said Mr. Carvel, sternly, "your memory's too good. But I proved myself a good business man, Jinny; he paid for her in a year." "You don't mean that you made him pay you for the boat?" cried Jinny. "Why, Pa, I didn't think you were that mean!" The two men laughed heartily. "I was a heap meaner," said her father. "I made him pay interest." Virginia drew in her breath, and looked at the Colonel in amazement. "He's the meanest man I know," said Captain Lige. "He made me pay interest, and a mint julep." "Upon my word, Pa," said Miss Virginia, soberly, "I shouldn't have believed it of you." Just then Jackson, in his white jacket; came to announce that supper was ready, and they met Ned at the dining-room door, fairly staggering under a load of roses.