Duties which it was impossible to trifle with called the Captain back.

"It's quite likely," he said, alluding pleasantly to the impression which he had produced in speaking of the Highlanders, "that I shall find more strangers to interest me in the great city." "Are they always strangers ?" Randal asked.

"Have you never met by accident with persons whom you may once have known ?" "Never--yet.

But it may happen on my return." "In what way ?" "In this way.

I have been in search of a poor girl who has lost both her parents: she has, I fear, been left helpless at the mercy of the world.
Her father was an old friend of mine--once an officer in the Navy like myself.