too anxious to heed approval, even from such a source; "is he dead, do you think?" 

 "I hope not; but we'll soon see. Call the servants, Emily. Barry, lift him up again and take him into my room." 

 "No, mine," exclaimed Emily, as she ran to call assistance. "I won't have you disturbed, and mine is right off the hall here." 

 "Very well. Lay him on the floor, Barry. And, Emily, bring me my flask. Bear a hand, all." 

Presently the man was stretched out upon a blanket thrown upon the floor of Emily's room 

 Presently the man was stretched out upon a blanket thrown upon the floor of Emily's room, and the admiral knelt down by his side. He felt over him with his practised fingers, murmuring the while: 

 "No bones broken apparently. I guess he'll be all right. Have you the flask there, daughter? This will bring him around, I trust," he added, as he poured the restoring liquid down the man's throat. "Barry, go you for Dr. Wilcox as quick as you can. Present my compliments to him, and ask him to come here at once. Shake a leg, man! Emily, loosen the man's collar—your fingers are younger than mine—and give him another swallow. He's worth a dozen dead men yet, I'm sure." 

 As he spoke the admiral rose to his feet and gave place to Emily. Very gently the girl did as the old man bade her, and presently the man extended before her opened his eyes and stared up at her vacantly, wonderingly, for a few moments at first, and then, with a dawning light of recognition in his eyes, he smiled faintly as he remembered. His first words might have been considered flippant, unworthy of the situation, but to the girl they seemed not inappropriate. 

 "The blue-eyed water-witch!" he murmured. "To be saved by you," he continued, half jestingly,—it was a brave heart which could find place for pleasantry then, she thought,—"and then to find you smiling above me." 

 At these whispered words what he still lacked in color flickered into Emily's face, and as he gazed steadily upon her, the flicker became a flame which suffused her cheeks. He had noticed her even in those death-fronting moments on the wreck. 

 "Are you better now?" she asked him in her confusion. 

 "Better, miss?" he answered, softly, yet not striving to rise; "I am well again. I came down to——" 

 Prev. P 26/228 next