"Good-morning, captain! find a chair. Oh, pitch the books on the floor—they're of no account. I'm to notice them all favorably in the 'Spouter'—the author sent a five-dollar bill for me to do it!"
"Young Blair said you wanted to see me," remarked the captain, tilting back his chair, and looking inquiringly through his cigar-smoke.
"Why, so I did. I heard before I went up the country a rumor that you were going to leave us—going to leave the army, in fact, and return to England. Is it so?"
"Yes. I'm confoundedly tired of Speckport, and this from-hand-to-mouth life. It is time I retired on my fortune, and I am going to do it."
"How?"
"Well, I mean to return home—run down to Cumberland, and saddle myself on my old uncle. He was always fond of me as a boy, and I know is yet, in spite of his new wife and heir. Perhaps I may drop into a good thing there—heiresses are plenty."
"I should think you had got your heart-scald of that," said Val, grinning. "You bait your hook for heiresses often enough, but the gold-fish don't seem to bite."
Captain Cavendish colored and frowned.
"All heiresses are not Miss Hendersons," he said, with a cold sneer. "I might know what to look for from your Bluenose and Quaker tradesmen's daughters. I shall marry an English lady—one whose father did not make his money selling butter or hawking fish."
"Oh, come now, Cavendish! You have been in love in Speckport. Don't deny it!"