The letter was from one of the captain’s old shipmates, Captain Richard Lancaster, the best friend he had had when he was in the merchant service.  Captain Lancaster had often been asked by his old friend to visit him at the toll-gate, but, being married and rheumatic, he had never accepted the invitation.  But now he wrote that his son, Dick, had planned a holiday trip which would take him through Glenford, and that, if it suited Captain Asher, the father would accept for the son the long-standing invitation.  Captain Lancaster wrote that as he could not go himself to his old friend Asher, the next best thing would be for his son to go, and when the young man returned he could tell his father all about Captain Asher.  There would be something in that like old times.  Besides, he wanted his former shipmate to know his son Dick, who was, in his eyes, a very fine young fellow.

“There never was such a lucky thing in the world,” said Captain Asher to himself, when he had finished rereading the letter.  “Of course, I want to have Dick Lancaster’s son here, but I could not have had him if Olive had been here.  But now it is all right.  The young fellow can stay here a few days, and he will be gone before she gets back.  If I like him I can ask him to come again; but that’s my business.  Handsome women, like that Mrs. Easterfield, always bring good luck.  I have noticed that many and many a time.”

Then he set himself to work to write a letter to invite young Richard Lancaster to spend a few days with him.

For the rest of that day, and the greater part of the next, Captain Asher gave a great deal of thinking time to the consideration of the young man who was about to visit him, and of whom, personally, he knew very little.  He was aware that Captain Lancaster had a son and no other children, and he was quite sure that this son must now be a grown-up young man.  He remembered very well that Captain Lancaster was a fine young fellow when he first knew him, and he did not doubt at all that the son resembled the father.  He did not believe that young Dick was a sailor, because he and old Dick had often said to each other that if they married their sons should not go to sea.  Of course he was in some business; and Captain Lancaster ought to be well able to give him a good start in life; just as able as he himself was to give Olive a good start in housekeeping when the time came.

“Now, what in the name of common sense,” ejaculated Captain Asher, “did I think of that for?  What has he to do with Olive, or Olive with him?” And then he said to himself, thinking of the young man in the bosom of his family and without reference to anybody outside of it:  “Yes, his father must be pretty well off.  He did a good deal more trading than ever I did.  But after all, I don’t believe he invested his money any better than I did mine, and it is just as like as not if we were to show our hands, that Olive would get as much as Dick’s son.  There it is again.  I can’t keep my mind off the thing.”  And as he spoke he knocked the ashes out of his pipe, and began to stride up and down the garden walk; and as he did so he began to reproach himself.