WYLDER'S HAJVD.
407
"Well, that may be, sir, but I almost suspeck she's bin
hurted somehow. She got them cryin' fits upstairs, you
know; and the Capting, he's hoflle bad-tempered this
morning, and he never looked near her once, after his sis-
ter came; and he left them together, talking and crying,
and he locked hisself into the library, like one as knowed
he'd done something to be ashamed on, half the night."
And so on. But there was no more to be learned, and
Mr. Larcom returned and attended the Captain very rev-
erentially at his solitary breakfast.
Mr. Jos Larkin was away for London. Everything
was going perfectly smoothly with him. A celestial grati-
tude glowed and expanded within his breast. His angling
had been prosperous hitherto, but just now he had made a
miraculous draught, and his nets and his heart were burst-
ing-
There was no shadow of self-reproach to slur the sunny
landscape. He had made a splendid purchase from Cap-
tain Lake, it was true. He drew his despatch-box nearer to
him affectionately, as he thought on the precious records
it contained. But who in this wide-awake world was bet-
ter able to take care of himself than the gallant Captain?
If it were not the best thing for the Captain, surely it
would not have been done. Whom have I defrauded?
My hands are clean! He had made a still better pur-
chase from the Vicar; but what would have become of
the Vicar if he had not been raised up to purchase? And
was it not speculative, and was it not possible that he
should lose all that money, and was it not, on the whole,
the wisest thing that the Vicar, under his difficulties, could
have been advised to do?
So reasoned the good attorney, as with a languid smile
and a sigh of content, his long hand laid across the cover
of the despatch-box by his side, he looked forth through