You don't seem as if you were in very bad spirits, yourself." "I'm all right, Mr.Lindsey," I answered cheerfully.

"I've been down to Jericho, it's true, and to worse, but I chanced across a good Samaritan or two.

And I've looked out a clean and comfortable hotel for you, and we'll go there now." I led them away to a good hotel that I had noticed in my walks, and while they took their suppers I sat by and told them all my adventure, to the accompaniment of many exclamations from my mother and Maisie.

But Mr.
Lindsey made none, and I was quick to notice that what most interested him was that I had been to see Mr.Gavin Smeaton.
"But what for did you not come straight home when you were safely on shore again ?" asked my mother, who was thinking of the expense I was putting her to.

"What's the reason of fetching us all this way when you're alive and well ?" I looked at Mr.Lindsey--knowingly, I suppose.
"Because, mother," I answered her, "I believed yon Carstairs would go back to Berwick and tell that there'd been a sad accident, and I was dead--drowned--and I wanted to let him go on thinking that I was dead--and so I decided to keep away.