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own accord and took my seafaring second-hand through my telescope. Most of the ships of the world come up the Channel out there, sailing to and from the Seven Seas—if you were going to stay I’d show you them.”
    “But I am going to stay,” said Lucy.
    “No one stays in this house,” said the captain. “I don’t intend that they should, and you’d be surprised how easy it is to drive people away—lily-livered landlubbers that they are.”
    “Did you open that window upstairs to frighten me away?” asked Lucy.
    “No,” said the captain, “I opened it because I didn’t want another accident with that damned gas. I don’t want a second verdict of suicide while of unsound mind brought in, in my house.”
    “What you don’t seem to understand,” said Lucy, “is that this is no longer your house. It belongs to someone in South America.”
    “And that’s another thing,” said Captain Gregg, roaring again like a tempest, “letting that——little runt have my good house and money just because he’s my next-of-kin. Damn it, I was going to make a will leaving Gull Cottage as a rest home for old sea captains and my income to house them.”
    “Well, it’s too late now,” said Lucy, “and surely it’s better for the house to be lived in and looked after, than that it should degenerate into the pig-sty it has become.”
    “I don’t want anyone living in my house but men—and sailors at that,” said Captain Gregg.
    “But I want to live in it,” said Lucy. “It’s the right position for the children to go to school and the right rent for me to afford, and I’m going to live in it if I have to heat the bath water on the Beatrice stove.”
    “You are not going to live in it, madam,” said Captain Gregg stiffly. “I’ll not have my good bedroom turned into a scented boudoir filled with frippery and falderals.”
    “You’re mean,” said Lucy stormily, “mean and dog-in-the-mangerish and altogether horrible,” and because she was verytired after the hard work of the day, she slipped down on to a chair and, bowing her head on her arms on the table, wept.
    “Don’t cry,” said the captain testily, “damn it, madam, don’t cry, I say—if there is one thing I can’t stand it is a woman crying. Well, light your damn fire and fill your blasted bottle, I don’t care, only for God’s sake, stop snivelling.”
    “I’m not snivelling,” said Lucy, sobbing away, “I’m just crying a little because I’m tired and very unhappy and I have no house to live in.”
    “Nonsense,” snapped Captain Gregg, “there are thousands of empty houses in England merely waiting to be lived in. That sort of sentimental twaddle won’t work with me.”
    “But I want to live in
this
house,” said Lucy, “it’s more
my
house than any I’ve ever seen, and if I love it so much now when it looks so dirty, think how I shall love it and care for it when it’s clean and tidy all over.”
    “Why do you like it so much?” asked the captain. “Is it because of its ridiculously low rent, is it just that spirit of something-for-no thing?”
    “No, no, no!” said Lucy. “I felt it was my place as soon as I saw it. I fell in love with it at once—I can’t explain it—it was as if the house itself were welcoming me and crying out to be rescued from its degradation.”
    “A bit on the fanciful side,” growled Captain Gregg, “but there may be some truth in it. The first ship I owned was in a fearful state of disrepair, that’s why I got her cheap, and I always swore she sailed twice as sweetly for me in gratitude for her new rig than she’d ever done for her late master.”
    “If I promised not to turn your bedroom into a scented boudoir, couldn’t we come on trial for six months?” said Lucy.
    “Once settled in this house for six days and I’d never get you out,” said the captain. “However, bring your brats if you like and we’ll try it for the summer.”
    “And you’ll go right away and leave