"You be big, by and by."
As he said this, an unseen hand laid him senseless on the beach. The same individual who dealt the blow, returned the child safely to her home, and leaving her to tell her own story, disappeared.
A chill of horror crept over the Doctor, when mammy, the next morning, related to him, her pet's adventure. He wrote immediately to his friend, Squire Tinknor, for advice. "Send the child away to boarding school," was the counsel given, and forthwith, the Doctor acted upon it.
Four years at school, and a winter of fashionable life in New York, transformed the little miss into an accomplished young lady.
When about to return home, she purchased a superb brace of pistols. At her request, Mr. Marston, the brother of the young lady whose hospitality she had shared, selected them for her. As he was one of those quiet, fatherly sort of young men, who naturally win the confidence, if not the love, of young ladies, she felt no hesitancy in opening her heart to him, on the subject of the pistols. She also related to him the story of her wonderful escape from Bloody Jim, and positively declared that if he ever came near her again, she intended to shoot him through the heart.
"But how would you reward the person who rescued you," said Mr. Marston, eagerly.
"O, I'd do anything in the world for him," she replied, "if I only knew who he was."
"Yes, I'd love him."
Just then the peculiar expression of her sober friend's face startled her, and she added, with one of her merry laughs, "provided he was not a poky old bachelor."