6. We learn that Mr. Ferrier has returned. Could you and he make it convenient to come to us from Saturday next until Monday? In that time we may have much useful talk.

7. In conclusion, you will perhaps not be displeased if an old man, who has not your strong faith, ventures nevertheless to ask God's blessing on you and your Mission.

With much admiration and regard,
I am, dear sir,
Your obedient servant,
ROBERT CASSALL.
H. Fullerton, Esq.

Committees of charitable organizations are not usually wanting in complaisance toward gentlemen who can spare lump sums of £130,000; so Mr. Cassall and his lawyers had very much of their own way. On the day when the last formal business was completed, Fullerton and our young savant, both in a state of bewildered exaltation of spirit, paid their visit to Mr. Cassall. Ferrier was strangely dumb in presence of Miss Dearsley, but he made up amply for his silence when he was alone with the men. Robert Cassall observed, however, that the youngster never spoke of himself. Once or twice the old man delicately referred to certain little matters which had occurred during the January gales—the amputation, the rescue of Lennard, the rough trips from smack to smack, the swamping of the small boat: but Ferrier was too eager for other people's good; he had so utterly forgotten himself that he hardly recognized Mr. Cassall's allusions. On the first evening at dinner Mr. Cassall said: "Now, Marion, you and Miss Lena must stay with us. She's not an orator like you; she was meant for a mouse, but you can do all the talk you like. And now, gentlemen, let me lay a few statements before you. I shall talk shorthand style if I can. First, I want Mr. Ferrier to be our first medical director, and I wish him to take the steamer on her first cruise. After that, if he likes to be a sort of inspector-general, we can arrange it. Next, I want to draw some more people into Mr. Fullerton's net. Excuse the poaching term. Mr. Ferrier and Mr. Fullerton can teach us, and I wish to begin with a big party here as soon as possible. After that, our young friend must go crusading. I'll provide every kind of expense, and we'll regard his engagement as beginning to-day if he likes. Next, I may tell you that I have already arranged for men to work night and day in relays on both my vessels—or rather your vessels. Mr. Director-General must see his hospital wards fitted out to the last locker, and I've taken another liberty in that direction. There's your cheque-book, and you are to draw at Yarmouth or London for any amount that you may think necessary. And now I fancy that is about all I need say."

Then Mr. Cassall smiled on his dumb-foundered hearers.

Ferrier said, "I must eventually stay on shore, I fear. I have resigned the professorship which I had hoped to keep; but I do not need to practise, and I am ready to see your venture well started."

Then the host finally insisted on hearing all about the cruise; he could understand every local allusion now, and the narrative touched him far more than any romance could have done. The girls dropped in a word here and there, for they claimed to be among the initiated, and thus an evening was spent in piling fresh fuel on the old gentleman's newborn fire of enthusiasm.

There never was such an elderly tornado of a man. After church on Sunday he packed the girls off in the pony-carriage, and then took his guests for a most vehement walk, during which he asked questions in a voice as vehement as his gait, and set forth projects with all the fine breadth of conception and heedlessness of cost which might be expected from an inspired man with a practically inexhaustible fund at his disposal.

The good Henry Fullerton had long walked in darkness; doubts had been presented to him; jibes and sneers had hailed upon him; all sorts of mean detractors had tried to label him as visionary, or crackbrain, or humbug, or even as money-grub: and now the clouds that obscured the wild path along which he had fared with such forlorn courage were all lifted away, and he saw the fulfilment of the visions which had tantalized him on doleful nights, when effort seemed vain and hope dead. He maintained his serenity, and calmly calculated pounds and shillings with all the methodic coolness of a banker's clerk. On the Sunday evening he was asked to confer privately with Mr. Cassall, and Ferrier was left free. Of course Lewis proposed a stroll in the grounds—what young man would have missed the opportunity?—and he listened delightedly to that musical, girlish talk for which he had longed during his tremendous vigils on the Sea of Storms.

Miss Ranken was in a flutter of exultation. "Did you ever know any one so clever as Marion?" she inquired, with quite the air of an elderly person accustomed to judge intellects. "We knew she could do anything with Mr. Cassall, but we never expected this. And now, Mr. Ferrier, you won't go and get drowned in nasty cabins any more, and you'll have your sailors all under your eye, and no more degenerate sea-sick ladies to plague you. Why, now we've made a start, we must capture some more millionaires, and we'll have a vessel with every fleet, and no sick men lying on grimy floors. By the way, what a capital association that would be—The Royal Society for the Capture of Millionaires. President and Organizing Director, Marion Dearsley; Treasurer, Lena Ranken; General Agent for Great Britain and the Colonies, Lewis Ferrier! Wouldn't that be splendid? I begin to feel quite like an administrator."