"But I should like to see Ellen just for one minute first.
"To begin your kissing, eh, my lad?" said the Old Sailor, with a roguish, laugh. "No, no; you'll have plenty of time for that. I'm in command now, and I'll have no mutineering, or I'll put you in irons. You'll not like them as well as Ellen's pretty arms." Notwithstanding the light nature of the Old Sailor's word's, Joshua detected a serious mood beneath them, and with a good grace he walked to the landing-place and stepped into the boat which Mrs. Eliza's husband held ready.
"So you were a long time with Dan, my lad," remarked the Old Sailor, when they were launched. "What did you talk about mostly?"
"The old things, sir,--ourselves mostly?"
"And yet I'll be bound," said the Old Sailor, looking steadily at Joshua, and compelling Joshua to return his gaze, "that there was something which you might have spoken of had you not been restrained by a feeling, say, of kindness to Dan. What, now?"
"There was something, sir," replied Joshua, wondering what this conversation, so singularly commenced, would lead to.
"Ah!" ejaculated the Old Sailor, rubbing his knees in a satisfied manner; "let us hear what that something was."
"You speak so earnestly, sir," said Joshua, inwardly questioning himself, "that I must be careful not to conceal any thing from you--not that I have any reason nor that I wish to do so, but something might escape me. I must first say, though that you must not expect me to break any confidence--that supposing Dan had a secret, and had imparted it to me, I should not be justified in telling that secret to any one else."
"Fair and honest, my lad; what I expected from you."
"Well, then, I have been sorry to find that Mr. Kindred"--
"Minnie's father--yes," interrupted the Old Sailor, with a sharp look at Joshua.
"Has been changed to all of us lately, and especially to me; and I have been sorry to think that it is because of something which I have done that he is so changed."
"Nothing--absolutely nothing; and that's what grieves me. If I did know, I should be able to justify myself. Why, sir, this morning he refused to see me when I went to wish him good-by, and refused to let me see Minnie. I did not speak of this thing to Dan because of my love for him."