He recollected, too, his vexation on that day at not seeing Rose Salterne.

Why, he had never seen her since.

Never seen her now for six years and more! Of her ripened beauty he knew only by hearsay; she was still to him the lovely fifteen years' girl for whose sake he had smitten the Barnstaple draper over the quay.

What a chain of petty accidents had kept them from meeting, though so often within a mile of each other! "And what a lucky one!" said practical old Amyas to himself.

"If I had seen her as she is now, I might have loved her as Frank does--poor Frank! what will he say?
What does he say, for he must know it already?
And what ought I to say--to do rather, for talking is no use on this side the grave, nor on the other either, I expect!" And then he asked himself whether his old oath meant nothing or something; whether it was a mere tavern frolic, or a sacred duty.