“And you still love her?” asked the sss queen excitedly.
“Ay, forever!”
“Noble youth. Here, take the reward of thy fidelity; for know, Bromley Chitterlings, that I am Eliza Jane. Wearied with waiting, I embarked on a Peruvian guano ship—it’s a long story, dear.”
“And altogether too thin,” said the Boy Avenger, fiercely releasing himself from her encircling arms. “Eliza Jane’s age, a year ago, was only thirteen, and you are forty, if a day.”
“True,” she returned sadly, “but I have suffered much, and time passes rapidly, and I’ve grown. You would scarcely believe that this is my own hair.”
“I know not,” he replied, in gloomy abstraction.
“Forgive my deceit,” she returned. “If you are affianced to another, let me at least be—a mother to you.”
The Pirate Prodigy started, and tears came
