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Aunt Jane's Nieces at Millville
Would you like to know their history? It is a sad story,
and pitiful; but I am sure you would understand and appreciate my old
friends better after hearing it."
Their hearts fairly jumped with joy. Would they like to hear the story?
Was it not this very clue which they had been blindly groping for to
enable them to solve the mystery of the Wegg crime? The boy marked their
interest, and began his story at once, while the hearts of the three
girls sang-gladly: "At last--at last!"
CHAPTER XVII.
JOE TELLS OF "THE GREAT TROUBLE."
"As a young man, my father was a successful sea captain," said the boy,
"and, before he was thirty, owned a considerable interest in the ship he
sailed. Thomas Hucks was his boatswain,--an honest and able seaman in
whom my father became much interested. Hucks was married, and his wife
was an attendant in the employ of Hugh Carter, a wealthy ship chandler
of Edmunton, the port from which my fathers ship sailed. Thomas had some
difficulty in enjoying his wife's society when on shore, because old
Carter did not want him hanging around the house; so Captain Wegg
good-naturedly offered to intercede for him.
"Carter was a gruff and disagreeable man, and, although my father had
been a good customer, he refused his request and threatened to discharge
Nora, which he did. This made Captain Wegg angry, and he called upon
Mary Carter, whose especial attendant Nora had been, to ask her to take
the girl back. Mary was a mild young lady, who dared not oppose her
father; but the result of the interview was that the sea captain and
Mary Carter fell mutually in love. During the next two or three years,
whenever the ship was in port, the lovers frequently met by stealth at
the cottage of Mrs. Hucks, a little place Thomas had rented. Here my
father and mother were finally married.
"Meantime Nora had a son, a fine young chap, I've heard; and presently
my mother, who had a little fortune of her own, plucked up enough
courage to leave her father's roof, and took up her abode in a pretty
villa on the edge of a bluff overlooking the sea.
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There was once an honest journeyman tailor, by name Labakan, who learned his trade with an excellent master in Alexandria. It could not be said that Labakan was unhandy with the needle; on the contrary, he could make excellent work: moreover, one would have done him injustice to have called him lazy. Nevertheless, his companions knew not what to make of him, for he would often sew for hours together so rapidly that the needle would glow in his hand, and the thread smoke, and that none could equal him.
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