were slender and brown, but shapely as a woman's. I was taking up the
supper; so I only gave him a glance or two, and saw him standing there,
his left hand extended to the blaze, and his eye resting lightly and
then earnestly on Faith in her pretty sleep, and turning away much as
one turns from a picture. At length I came to ask him to sit by, and at
that moment Faith's eyes opened.

Faith always woke up just as a baby does, wide and bewildered, and the
fire had flushed her cheeks, and her hair was disordered, and she fixed
her gaze on him as if he had stepped out of her dream, her lips half
parted and then curling in a smile,--but in a second he moved off with
me, and Faith slipped down and into the little bedroom.

Well, we didn't waste many words until father'd lost the edge of his
appetite, and then I told about Faith.

"'F that don't beat the Dutch!" said father. "Here's Mr.--Mr."------

"Gabriel," said the stranger.

"Yes,--Mr. Gabriel Verelay been served the same trick by the same
squall, only worse and more of it,--knocked off the yacht--What's that
you call her?"

"La belle Louise."

"And left for drowned,--if they see him go at all. But he couldn't 'a'
sinked in that sea, if he'd tried. He kep' afloat; we blundered into
him; and here he is."