1830.] The Demon Ship. 639 



ings. There had been days ay, weeks, in which one thought of Marga- 

 ret had not disturbed the steady man of the world in his busy engage- 

 ments ; and now she returned upon his feelings as fresh as if only one 

 day had elapsed since they vowed themselves to each other, and parted. 

 I felt that there had been treachery. I became keenly sensible that I must 

 have appeared a traitor to Margaret, and hurriedly resolved not to 

 declare my name to her until I had in some way cleared my character. 



I was still sufficiently a man of the world to have my feelings in some 

 mastery, and returned to the side of Margaret with an apology for indis- 

 position, which in truth was no subterfuge. I verily believe, as the 

 vessel had given a sudden lurch at the moment she discovered herself, 

 and my pendant posture over the ship's side might be an attitude of 

 rather dubious construction, she passed on me the forgiveness of a sea- 

 sick man. Margaret added, with an easy politeness which contrasted 

 curiously with her former girlishness, that she presumed she had the 

 pleasure of addressing her fellow-passenger, Captain Lyon ? She had 

 often, she observed, heard her father mention his name, though not 

 aware until this moment of his identity with her brother-voyager. I 

 was not displeased by this illusion, though I thus found myself identified 

 with a man twenty years my senior. As I wore one of those charming 

 rural Livorno hats, whose deep, green-lined flaps form a kind of um- 

 brella to the face, I became convinced that mine, in such a light, was 

 effectually screened from observation. My voice too had, I felt, been 

 changed by years and climate. I therefore remarked, with an effort at 

 ease, that I had certainly once possessed the advantage of Captain Ca- 

 meron's acquaintance, but that a lapse of many years had separated me 

 from him and his family. " There was, however," I remarked, very 

 tremulously, " a Captain, since made Colonel, Francillon, in India, who 

 had been informed, or rather, happily for her friends, misinformed of 

 the death of Miss Cameron." Margaret smiled incredulously ; but with 

 a dignified indifference, which created a strange feeling within me, 

 seemed willing to let the subject pass. Margaret's spirits seemed to have 

 lost the buoyancy, and her cheek the bloom of youth. But there was 

 an elegance, a sort of melancholy dignity in her manner, and a 

 touching expression on her countenance, to which both before had been 

 strangers. If she were more beautiful at seventeen, she was more 

 interesting at twenty-eight. Observing her smile, and perceiving that, 

 with another graceful acknowledgment of my assistance, she was about 

 to withdraw, I grew desperate, and ventured, with some abruptness, to 

 demand if she had herself known Colonel Francillon ? She answered, 

 with a self-possession which chilled me, that she had certainly in her 

 youth (such was her expression) been acquainted with a Lieutenant 

 Francillon, who had since, she believed, been promoted in India, and 

 probably was the officer of whom I spoke. " Perhaps," observed I, 

 " there it not a man alive for whom I feel a greater interest than for 

 Colonel Francillon." ec He is fortunate in possessing so warm a friend," 

 said Margaret, with careless politeness ; but I thought I perceived, 

 through this nonchalance, a slight tone of pique, which was less mortify- 

 ing than her indifference. " I know not," said I, " anything which 

 causes such a sudden and enchantment-like reversion of the mind to past 

 scenes and feelings, as an unexpected rencontre with those (or even the 

 kindred of those) who were associated with us in the earliest and freshest 

 days of our being." " Nothing, certainly," answered Margaret, " re- 



