"Come in and have a glass of grog with me," was his salutation to Isaac Thornycroft as he and Anna came to the gate. "'Twill be a charity," added the captain. "I'm all alone. Mother's gone up to bed tired, and Amy's looking after her." Isaac came in and sat down, but wanted to decline the grog. Captain Copp was offended, so to pacify him he mixed some. As Anna held out her hand to the captain to say good night he noticed that her soft eyes were full of loving light; her generally delicate cheeks were a hot crimson. "Hope it hasn't come of kissing," thought the shrewd and somewhat discomfited sailor. "How well your mother wears!" observed Isaac. "She was always tough," replied Captain Copp, in a thankful accent. "Hope she will be for many a year to come. Look here, Mr. Isaac, I meant to say a word to you. Don't you begin any sweethearting with that girl of ours, or talking nonsense of that sort. It wouldn't do, you know." "Wouldn't it?" returned Isaac, carelessly. "Wouldn't it! Why, bless and save my wooden leg, _would_ it? A pretty uproar there'd be at the Red Court. I'd not have such a thing happen for the best three-decker that was ever launched. I'd rather quarrel with the whole of Coastdown than with your folks." "Rather quarrel with me, captain, than with them, I suppose," returned Isaac, stirring his grog. Captain Copp looked hard at him. "I should think so." By intuition, rather than by outward signs, Isaac Thornycroft saw that the obstinate old sailor would be true to the backbone to what he deemed _right_; that he might as well ask for Amy Copp as for Anna Chester, unless he could produce credentials from his father. And so he could only temporize and disarm suspicion. Honourable by nature though he was, he considered the suppression of affairs justifiable, on the score, we must suppose that "All stratagems are fair in love and war." "Good health, captain," said he, with a merry laugh--a laugh that somehow reassured Captain Copp. "And now tell me what wonderful event put you up to say this." "It was mother," answered the simple-minded captain. "The thought struck her somehow--you were both of you good-looking, she said. _I_ knew there was no danger; 'the young Thornycrofts are not marrying men,' I said to her. But now, look here, you and Anna had not better go out together again, lest other people should take up the same notions." With these words Captain Copp believed he had settled the matter, and done all that was necessary in the way of warning. He said as much to Amy, confidentially. Whether it might have proved so, he had not the opportunity of judging. On the following morning that lady received a pressing summons to repair to London. One of her sisters, staying there temporarily, was seized with illness, and begged the captain's wife to come and nurse her. By the next train she had started, taking Anna. "To be out of harm's way," she said to herself. "To help me take care of Maria," she said to the captain.