Just then an old fisherman came up, touching his cap.

"Beggin' yer pardon, sor," he said. "Is yer after findin' th' doctor
gettin' any better?"

"I can hardly tell you," answered Daddy, impatiently. "I know very little
about such things, but he looks very badly to me."

"Oh! The pity of it!" exclaimed the man. "I tells yer, sor, it's a sad
day, a real sad day fer Sweetapple Cove."

"Damn Sweetapple Cove!" Daddy shouted right in the poor fellow's face
with such energy that he leaped back in alarm.

But Susie had taken hold of Daddy's arm.

"Now you come erlong o' me, sor," she said, soothingly, as if she had
spoken to a child. "Don't yer be gettin' excited. Yer needs a good cup o'
tea real bad, I'm a-thinkin', and a smoke. Yer ain't had a seegar to-day,
and men folks is apt to get awful grumpy when they doesn't get ter smoke.
Come erlong now, there's a good man."

Strange to say, Daddy went with her, willingly enough, after I had kissed
him. He didn't resent Susie's manner at all. As I watched he stopped
after going a few yards, and looked out at sea, beyond the entrance of
the cove. Everything was disappearing in a dull greyness that was
beginning to blot out the rocky cliffs, and he turned to the girl.

"My boat will never get back to-night," he said, "and I suppose that
to-morrow will be worse. It always is. I wonder whether there is another