“Here, Ju! here is my Oliver, of whom I have told you so much!” said Menaida, running up to Judith. “Oliver, boy! she has read your letters, and I believe they gave her almost as great pleasure as they did me. She was always interested in you. I mean ever since she came into my house, and we have talked together about you, and upon my word it really seemed as if you were to her as a brother.”
A faint smile came on Judith’s face; she held out her hand and said:
“Yes, I have come to love your dear father, who has been to me so kind, and to Jamie also; he has been full of thought—I mean kindness. What has interested him has interested me. I call him uncle, so I will call you cousin. May it be so?”
He touched her hand; he did not dare to grasp the frail, slender white hand. But as he touched it, there boiled up in his heart a rage against Coppinger, that he—this man steeped in iniquity—should have obtained possession of a pearl set in ruddy gold—a pearl that he was, so thought Oliver, incapable of appreciating.
“How came you here?” asked Judith. “Your father has been expecting you some time, but not so soon.”
“I am come off the wreck.”
She started back and looked fixedly on him.
“What—you were wrecked?—in that ship last night?”
“Yes. After the fog lifted we were quite lost as to where we were, and ran aground.”
“What led you astray?”