The Don hunched his shoulders.

"Life itself is a game," says he, "in which the meanest stroke may not
be won without some risk; but, played as I direct, the odds are in our
favour. Picked up at sea from an Algerine boat, who shall deny our story
when the evidence against us lies there" (laying his hand out towards
the south), "where no man in England dare venture to seek it?"

"Why, to be sure," says Dawson; "that way all hangs together to a
nicety. For only a wizard could dream of coming hither for our undoing."

"For the rest," continues the Don, thoughtfully, "there is little to
fear. Judith Godwin has eyes the colour of Moll's, and in all else Simon
must expect to find a change since he last saw his master's daughter.
They were in Italy three years. That would make Judith a lisping child
when she left England. He must look to find her altered. Why," adds he,
in a more gentle voice, as if moved by some inner feeling of affection
and admiration, nodding towards Moll, "see how she has changed in this
little while. I should not know her for the raw, half-starved spindle of
a thing she was when I saw her first playing in the barn at Tottenham
Cross."

Looking at her now (browsing the goats amongst my most cherished herbs),
I was struck also by this fact, which, living with her day by day, had
slipped my observation somewhat. She was no longer a gaunt, ungainly
child, but a young woman, well proportioned, with a rounded cheek and
chin, brown tinted by the sun, and, to my mind, more beautiful than any
of their vaunted Moorish women. But, indeed, in this country all things
do mature quickly; and 'twas less surprising in her case because her
growth had been checked before by privation and hardship, whereas since