Not bein' a marrying man myself, I don't know much of such matters.

But I've always understood that little 'uns--especially cunning little souls like yours--go a long way towards makin' up a woman's happiness." "Yes," she murmured, with her slow smile.
"Been dead long--their pa ?" "He is not dead." "Oh--beg pardon." And Joseph drowned a very proper confusion in bitter beer.
"He has only ceased to care about me--or his children," explained Marie.
Joseph shook his head; but whether denial of such a possibility was intended, or an expression of sympathy, he did not explain.
"I hope," he said, with a somewhat laboured change of manner, "that the little ones are in good health." "Yes, thank you." Joseph pushed back his chair with considerable vigour, and passed the back of his hand convivially across his moustache.
"A square meal I call that," he said, with a pleasant laugh, "and I thank you kindly." With a tact which is sometimes found wanting inside a better coat than he possessed, Joseph never again referred to that part of Marie's life which seemed to hang like a shadow over her being.

Instead, he set himself the task of driving away the dull sense of care which was hers, and he succeeded so well that Jack Meredith, lying between sleep and death in his bedroom, sometimes heard a new strange laugh.
By daybreak next morning Joseph was at sea again, steaming south in a coasting-boat towards St.Paul de Loanda.

He sent off a telegram to Maurice Gordon in England, announcing the success of the Relief Expedition, and then proceeded to secure the entire services of a medical man.

With this youthful disciple of AEsculapius he returned forthwith to Loango and settled down with characteristic energy to nurse his master.
Meredith's progress was lamentably slow, but still it was progress, and in the right direction.