"WELL, I will take you up to see Flora this evening. I have told them that I am going to bring you, and they will be very pleased to make your acquaintance.'

'I shall be delighted, old man, to see the girls and the old birds, and all the rest of them.'

'Yes, and you will find it a regular nest of singing birds.'

Jack Burnett and I were the oldest of friends. We had been at school and at college together, and such ties are among the most enduring in the world. For three years Jack and I lived on the same staircase at Oxford. He breakfasted in my rooms, or I in his, every day during term-time, save of course when we were breakfasting with other chums. We never had a serious dispute in the world, never a case of the raised voice or heightened colour. All our small secrets were open ones. Consequently when Jack got engaged he being a clerk in Somerset House-I was speedily informed of the circumstances. I had never seen the young lady, however, beyond her photograph; which was prepossessing enough in all conscience. I had been articled to a lawyer, and was now

CHRISTMAS, '80.

engaged as a clerk in the office, in the north of England, and did not often get to town; and even when I was in London, the proverbial selfishness of lovers kept them together, and I was shut out of the little paradise of that far western square. It was only a little, little square in the far, far west; but, according to Jack, it was the abode of bliss. But the paradise had its drawback in the presence of the demon of impecuniosity. The Delormes had to cut things extremely fine. The drawback was the greater, as Jack's official salary was only ninety pounds, rising ten pounds a year. thought myself a poor man, but I was affluence itself compared with Jack. We calculated that he would have to wait at least fifteen years before he could marry Flora.

I

his intended host; but when I got there it was only a parallelogram.' Weston-square hardly came under the denomination of any mathematical figure. But in the centre there were turf and flower-beds, great masses of flowering plants, and at this time the air was laden with the fairest scent of lilacs. There was a pretty little garden in front of a low two-storied house, the little drawing-room of which showed flowers and birds through the muslin-curtains. And then I was introduced to Fanny. If this story is not all about Fanny, it is none the less to be understood that Fanny became all and everything to me. The only thing that I could never make out was why Jack should have been such a dolt as to have fallen in love with Flora when he had a chance of falling in love with Fanny. Jack himself assured me subsequently, and in great confidence, that for several weeks he had loved both sisters with an equal degree of intensity. It was only accident which decided that oscillating balance. It was a particularly pretty dress, white muslin with wildflowers, aided by a song of peculiar archness, that determined the point. At least this was the account which he chose to give, although Mrs. Jack that was to be always denied its authenticity, and said that importunities had gone to a very extreme length, indeed, before that particular evening.

I suppose, to indorse Jack's language, there never had been such a nest of singing birds as that to which my destiny had led me. The old birds, by which I mean the very honoured parents of Fanny and Flora, were very musical. The old lady played exquisitely, and the old man accompanied her -also exquisitely-on the flute. Mrs. Delorme was an Italian by birth; but she had been absent for

so many years from her native country that she spoke the language far less well than did her daughters. I imagined, however, that this Italian ancestry had something to do with this brilliant music. You might go to many a public concert and not hear voices so good as those of the Delorme girls, and they sang with the passion and gesture of born musicians.

Music was the order of the evening. Directly the introduction was effected, the girls needed no persuasion to come to the piano, and poured forth gem after gem from oratorio and opera with a skill and vigour that transcended all my conceptions of what might be done this way. Jack professed to be able to sing, which he did, according to his lights. I was not able to sing myself, which gave me more leisure for falling in love with Fanny. It was easy to see, by various signs visible to the observer, that the Delormes were not overburdened with the good things of this world. There was only one domestic, and she was taking an evening out; and indeed it was impossible for them, as they told me, to have any domestic who did not have a great many evenings out. But poverty has many gifts and graces that in the eyes of lovers at least-can make it absolutely enchanting. We had a simple substantial supper; the cool salad and cold meat, and jug of foaming beer, were brought in by the young ladies themselves; and Fanny lighted our cigarettes for us, and, out of innocent bravado, offered to smoke one herself. Old Delorme produced a square bottle and some limes, and, though I think that we would rather have gone back to the music, held us with his cheerful talk. It was in the style of the Vicar of Wakefield's parties; perhaps not much

'O, never mind that,' said Jack. 'When Dr. Johnson was engaged to the lady who became his wife, she told him that she ought to let him know that she had had a relation who had been hung. Old Johnson replied that he had half a dozen who deserved to be hung.'

'Well, papa, it was not quite so bad as all that,' exclaimed Fanny. 'The poor fellow did not mean to be a pirate. He couldn't help himself.'

'They would have hung him all the same if they had caught him. Hung him first and tried him afterwards.'

I confess that I was beginning to feel a little astonished, and had given my friends credit for better connections.

'But you had better tell the gentlemen all about it,' said Mrs. Delorme.

It was the funniest thing that ever happened,' said Fanny. 'It was quite by accident that we discovered it. We happened to knock up against an old hair-trunk, which flew open, and a lot of papers tumbled out. We spent the whole afternoon looking them through: such a lot of letters and bills of lading and old almanacs, and all sorts of queer papers! Among the rest we found a letter from our great-great-great-grandfather, telling us of some extraordinary adventures in the Southern Seas.'

'I should like to see it above all things.'

'Well, we have two copies. Here is the original, but it is so

dim and defaced that you will hardly be able to make it out. The copy was made many years ago. It is quite clear; but we should not be able to make out the original without a great deal of difficulty.'

The following is this extraordinary letter, Englished to suit our modern date:

'My dear son George,-I am just going to put down divers strange passages of my life. There are some things which you ought to know, for the part clearing of my memory and for your own welldoing and fame hereafter. Alas, I am a sinful man, and there has been much that is bad and evil in my life, and some things that press very heavy on my poor soul. And yet I do protest that when Captain Morgan did invite me to go on board his ship, that had letters of marque and reprisals, I thought that he had the King's warrant to take ships in the Spanish Main; these said Spaniards, so to speak, being our natural enemies, and unjustly claiming all the Indian seas. But, alas, he was more of a buccaneer than a privateer; and although he had the flags of many nations folded up in his state cabin, to use as might befit his occasions, yet was there one flag properer than any other under which he ought to have sailed-the Black Flag?

To be sure, at first he was more like a general or an admiral leading an army against an enemy. For he had three ships that could fire their cannon against a strong fort, and he once landed enough men on a certain island that should fight a great battle. And well it was that the foe yielded when they did; for we had hardly two rounds of ammunition left when they so yielded and turned their backs. And, indeed, without the gunpow

der he wreaked his wicked will on the poor hapless wretches whom he took captive. For if one of their slaves did say that such a one had money, but concealed it, he would tie him up by the wrist to a tree, or would beat him and make sore wound, or would rack his feet with irons, which no true sailor with his Highness's commission would ever do. Moreover, he would send some of us round in a periaga into the little creeks to ravage and plunder and torture any people, we ourselves being as bad as savages, and more like pirates than honest sailors. And, indeed, I take great shame to myself to confess that there was much savagery and wild adventure to which my evil heart did much incline at the time, and for which I do humbly hope to be forgiven; for I have learned by a sad experience that as shadow follows substance, so doth retribution follow villany. As may be seen among other things by the sad fate which overtook at the last this very Morgan himself. Among his cruelties he would tie a cord around the forehead of one who, he thought, might have a secret of stored jewels, until his eyes grew as big as eggs, and seemed to start from the forehead. All which things were rendered unto him.

'Around the isle of Cuba are innumerable little islands which the Indian folk do call "cayos." And one of these islands he had a design to make a retreat, where he might rest after much fighting and toils, and recover himself, and then sally forth for more booty. And truly it would have been well for him, and me too, if we could have tarried in that pleasant island. For, indeed, the woods were most delicious, the air pure and delicate, the streams very clear, with varieties of choice fish; and many great turtle come up on the sands, and these are easily overturned, and their flesh

and broth are excellent. And there are many monkeys, which played and leaped from bough to bough with incredible agility; and it was wonderful to see how, when their young were wounded by the arquebus, or they were wounded themselves, their mothers would carry them on their backs. If we threw up stones at them they would throw down much fruit, which we thus gained without toil or discouragement. And if the captain made us sow anything, it was wonderful how the kind earth gave back plenteously all manner of yield. There were no Indians in this our island, howbeit there were many on some of the other cayos. But divers of them made us a house in the woods, which grew up very dense around us, so that there was but one difficult path through the forest, which a few of us could hold almost against any number, and which, indeed, it would be hard for those who knew it not to find. "Master," I said to Captain Morgan, "if you do not mean to go back to our own land-to old England-which is cold and rainy and dull, will you not stay in this beautiful island, where all is ease and wealth and comfort?" He was hard and cruel to others, but to me he was always in a rough sort courteous. I often thought that he would come back here to die, as indeed he did, though not in the way I thought for. But when he might have heaped up abundance for himself, I considered he would be satisfied; for, indeed, in his storehouse in the woods he had many costly and pleasant things, -rare carpets and hangings, and silver, carven, and chasened work, and linen, and stores of wines and strong waters. Also the birds they call the Faisands breed there much. Each time he came I thought he would stay there for many days, and that he would stay there