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286 discussed whether the Amirald had been wrecked for the insurance. The company—not without suspicion—had paid it, and had sold at auction, on the underwriters' account, both the brigantine and her cargo of phosphate. Bids had been few and low. An old man and his money, the village agreed, were soon parted; but Captain Christy thought otherwise.

"Joyce," he had declared solemnly, "it's a godsend. It's a godsend, girl. D' ye mind, I told ye I had wha'd-ye-call-ems—prognosticates—in my bones, ye know—that somehow I'd git another ship." He chuckled, then laughed as heartily as a boy. "When I see 'em keep lights out so, I knowed what their game was! Pack o' rascals!— Well, Joyce, the' won't be no more such sea-lawyer work aboard o' her now!"

His ready laughter, the free flow of his talk, his buoyant stride and shining countenance, seemed to the girl another marvel of the returning spring. It was as when a frozen brook, at some final touch of the thaw, moves downward, crashes, leaps into full-bodied