“Know nothin’ more about her, my dear, than I’ve told ’ee. Good-bye now, Miss Ruth. I must look sharp about this business of yours.”
He showed such evident disinclination to continue the painful subject, that Ruth forbore to press it, and they parted to prosecute their respective schemes.
Chapter Twelve.
Captain Bream develops a Capacity for Scheming.
At dinner that day Captain Bream paused in the act of conveying a whole potato to his mouth on the end of his fork, and said—
“Miss Seaward, I’m going to leave you—”
“Leave us!” cried Kate, interrupting him with a look of consternation, for she and Jessie had both become so fond of the amiable seaman, with the frame of Goliath and the heart of Samuel, that they were now as much afraid of losing, as they had formerly been of possessing him. “Leave us, captain!”
“Only for a time, Miss Kate—only for a time,” he replied, hastily, as he checked the power of further utterance with the potato. “Only for a time,” he repeated, on recovering the power. “You see, I’ve got a little bit of business to transact down at Yarmouth, and it will take me a good while to do it. Some weeks at the least—perhaps some months—but there’s no help for it, for the thing must be done.”