As he sat, with Olive standing near the footlights of his mental stage and the drop-curtain hanging between her and all the rest of the world, the captain strolled up to him.

“Dick,” said he, “somehow or other my tobacco does not taste as it ought to.  Give me a pipeful of yours.”

When the captain had filled his pipe from Dick’s bag he lighted it and gave a few puffs.  “It isn’t a bit better than mine,” said he, “but I will keep on and smoke it.  Dick, let’s go and take a walk over the hills.  I feel rather stupid to-day.  And, by the way, I hope you will be able to stay with me for the rest of your vacation.  Have you made plans to go anywhere else?”

“No plans of the slightest importance,” answered Lancaster with joyous vivacity.  “I shall be delighted to stay.”

This prompt acceptance somewhat surprised the captain.  He had spoken without premeditation, and without thinking of anything at all except that he did not want everybody to go away and leave him.  He had begun to know something of the pleasures of family life; of having some one to sit at the table with him; to whom he could talk; on whom he could look.  In fact, although he did not exactly appreciate such a state of things, some one he could love.  He was getting really fond of Dick Lancaster.

As for Olive, he did not know what to think of her; sometimes he was sure she was not coming back, and at other times he thought it likely he might get a letter that very day appointing the time for her return.  He stood puffing his pipe and thinking about this after Dick had spoken.

“But it does not matter,” he said to himself, “which way it happens.  If she doesn’t come I want him here, and if she does come, he is good enough for anybody, and perhaps she may be pleased.”  And then he indulged in a little fragment of the dream which had come to him before; he saw two young people in a charming home, not at the toll-gate, and himself living with them.  Plenty of money for all moderate needs, and all happy and satisfied.  Then with a sigh he knocked the tobacco from his pipe and said to himself:  “If I hear she is coming, I will let her know he is still here, and then she must judge for herself.”

As they walked together over the hills, Dick Lancaster was very anxious to know something about Olive’s return, but he did not like to ask.  The captain had been very reticent on the subject of his niece, and Dick was a gentleman.  But to his surprise, and very much to his delight, the captain soon began to talk about Olive.  He told Dick how his brother had entered the navy when the elder was first mate on a merchant vessel; how Alfred had risen in the service; had married; and how his wife and daughter had lived in various parts of the world.  Then he spoke of a good many things he had heard about Olive, and other things he had found out since she had lived with him; and as he went on his heart warmed, and Dick Lancaster listened with as warm a heart as that from which the captain spoke.