"Would it not be very nice for you to have a companion, Annie?" "No," she said sharply; "I should not like it at all." "Well, I will take you in to see her, and I think you will like her. "No; I am only joking," he broke off, as he saw tears start into her eyes. "It is not another girl. But you shall see for yourself." He took her hand, and led her to his father's room. "There, Annie, this is the gentleman who has come back with me this time." Annie looked at Captain Holland in surprise, and then turned her eyes to Dick for an explanation. "He is a respectable-looking old native, isn't he, Annie?" "Yes, he looks respectable," Annie said gravely; "but he doesn't look very old. Why has he come down with you, Dick? He can't have been a slave." "But I have, lass," the captain said, in English, to Annie's intense astonishment. "I have been in their hands a year or so longer than you were." Annie turned impulsively to Dick, and grasped his arm. "Oh, Dick," she said, in an excited whisper. "Is it--is it your father, after all?" "Ay, lass," the captain answered for him. "I am the boy's father, and a happy father, too, as you may guess, at finding I have such a son. And I hear he has been a good friend to you, too." "Oh, he has, he has indeed!" Annie cried, running forward and seizing his hands in both of hers. "I don't think there ever was anyone so kind and good." "What bosh, Annie!" Dick exclaimed, almost crossly. "Never mind what he says, my dear. You and I know all about it. Now we can do very well without him, for a time. He can go and tell his uncle and cousins all about his adventures, which, I have no doubt, they are dying to hear; and you and I can sit here, and exchange confidences until my barber comes. I don't look much like an Englishman now, but I hope that they will be able to get me something that will take this stain off my face." Mrs. Holland did not wake till evening. She seemed very much better, and had a short chat with Dick. She would have got up, had he not told her that he should be going to bed himself, in a short time, and that all his story would keep very well until the morning, when he hoped to find her quite herself again. By dint of the application of various unguents, and a vast amount of hard scrubbing, Captain Holland restored his face to its original hue. "I look a bit sunburnt," he said, "but I have often come back, browner than this, from some of my voyages." "You look quite like yourself, in your portrait at home, Father," Dick said. "It is the shaving and cutting your hair, even more than getting off the dye, that has made the difference. I don't think you look much older than you did then, except that there are a few grey hairs." "I shall look better tomorrow, Dick, when I get these outlandish things off. I have been trying on my new suit, and I think it will do, first rate. Those clothes that you wore on board ship, and handed to them as a model, gave them the idea of what I wanted."