"You saved my life, Miss Sanford." "I don't believe I've ever been called 'Miss Sanford' in my life. How strange it sounds!" she exclaimed, naïvely. "Everybody here calls me 'Miss Emily.'" "You will not find me unwilling, I am sure, to adopt the common practice," he exclaimed, lightly. "But, seriously, death never seemed nearer to me than it did last night, and I have been near it before, too. Had it not been for you----" "And Captain Barry," she interrupted, quickly. "Of course, for him, too, I'd not be here thanking you now." "But it was nothing, after all; anybody could have done it." "There I disagree with you. I am sailor enough to know that it was a most desperate undertaking. You put your own life in hazard to save mine. If that old man had relaxed his efforts, if you had made a mistake with those yoke-lines,--well, there would have been three of us to go instead of one." "Oh, hardly that." "But I know, Miss Emily, and I cannot allow you to disparage your action so. 'Twas a most heroic thing, and I'm not worthy the risk and the effort." "But you have been with Farragut; you were at Mobile Bay in the _Hartford_; you----" "You did not know it then, surely?" in great surprise. "I did not then; but since I did--as you persist in saying--save you, I am glad to know it now. But you have not told me your name." "My name is Richard Revere. I am a lieutenant in the United States navy." "How did you happen to come here?" curiously. "I came about the ship." "The ship?" she cried in alarm. "What of it?" "I came to inspect it," he answered, evasively, something prompting him that he was getting in dangerous waters. "Oh!" she exclaimed, greatly relieved; "I thought you might have come to destroy it, or to dispose of it. You see, it would be the death of grandfather if anything should happen to the old ship, and it would kill the old sailor, too; and then what would become of me?" Her frankness delighted him. An answer trembled on the tip of his tongue, but by a great effort he restrained his inclination and questioned her. "Have you no relatives, no friends?" "No relatives at all except grandfather," she answered, freely and frankly. "I have lived here since I was a baby with the admiral and Captain Barry. My mother died when I was an infant, and she was the only child of her mother. I haven't a connection in the world that I know of. Friends? Yes, everybody in the village is a friend of mine; but they are different, you know. I wonder sometimes what will happen when--they can't last much longer, you know, but God will take care of me," she continued, simply. "And I, too," he murmured softly, in spite of himself. "You!" she cried, surprised, turning her clear, splendid eyes toward him and confronting him in one unabashed glance. "What do you mean? I----"