"A touch of solitary, ma'am," acquiesced Levi.
"The yacht, we called it. He said he would return next day; and it went round Pendillion--round the headland of Pendillion, I lost it, and it never came again; but I think it will, sir--don't you? I'm sure it will--he was so confident; only smiled and nodded, and he said, 'No, I won't say good-bye.' He would not have said that if he did not mean to return--he could not so deceive a lonely poor thing like me, that adored him."
"No, he couldn't ma'am, not he; no man could. Betray the girl that adored him! Ba-a-ah! impossible," replied Mr. Levi, and shook his glossy ringlets sleepily, and dropped his eyelids, smiling. This old girl amused him, her romance was such a joke. But the light was perceptibly growing more dusky, and business must not wait upon fun, so Mr. Levi said--
"He'sh no chicken by this time, ma'am--your son, ma'am; I'm told he'sh twenty-sheven yearsh old--thatsh no chicken--twenty-sheven next birthday."
"Do you know anything of him, sir? Oh, no, he doesn't," she said, looking dreamily with her great sad eyes upon him.
"Jest you tell me, ma'am, where was he baptised, and by what name?" said her visitor.
A look of doubt and fear came slowly and wildly into her face as she looked at him.
"Who is he--I've been speaking to you, sir?"
"Oh! yesh, mo-o-st _beautiful_, you 'av, ma'am," answered he; "and I am your son's best friend--and yours, ma'am; only you tell me where to find him, and he'sh a made man, for all his dayzh."
"Where has he come from?--a stranger," she murmured.
"I don't know you, sir; I don't know your name," she dreamed on.
"Benjamin Levi. I'll _spell_ it for you, if you like," he answered, beginning to grow testy. "I told you my name, and showed you my ca-a-ard. Bah! it ravels at one end, as fast as it knits at the other."
And again he held the card of the firm of Goldshed and Levi, with his elbows on the table, between the fingers of his right and left hand, bowed out like an old-fashioned shopboard, and looking as if it would spring out elastically into her face.
"_There_, ma'am, that'sh the ticket!" said he, eyeing her over it.
"Once, sir, I spoke of business to a stranger, and I was always sorry; I did mischief," said the old woman, with a vague remorsefulness.
