"
"Humph! What sort of a character is her mother?"
"Oh, a tidy, God-fearing person, enough. One of these Methodist
class-leaders, Brianites they call themselves. I don't hold with them,
though I do go to chapel at whiles: but there are good ones among
them; and I do believe she's one, though she's a little fretful
at times. Keeps a little shop that don't pay over well; and those
preachers live on her a good deal, I think. Creeping into widows'
houses, and making long prayers--you know the text."
"Well, now, Captain Willis, I don't want to hurt your feelings; but do
you not see that one of two things I must believe,--either that the
belt was torn off my waist, and washed back into the sea, as it may
have been after all; or else, that--"
"Do you mean that she took it?" asked Willis, in voice of such
indignant astonishment that Tom could only answer by a shrug of the
shoulders.
"Who else could have done so, on your own showing?"
"Sir!" said Willis, slowly. "I thought I had to do with a gentleman:
but I have my doubts of it now. A poor girl risks her life to drag you
out of that sea, which but for her would have hove your body up to lie
along with that line there,"--and Willis pointed to the ghastly row--"
and your soul gone to give in its last account--You only know what
that would have been like--And the first thing you do in payment is
to accuse her of robbing you--her, that the very angels in heaven, I
believe, are glad to keep company with;" and the old man turned and
paced the beach in fierce excitement.
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