But Pemberton's wife had been a widow first, as he once told me, andCaptain Tom's and Stevey Todd's romances didn't run that way, byaccounts. But as to Uncle Abimelech, it may be what he exclaimed was true.

They all fell silent again, except Andrew McCulloch, who whistled:"Whew, whew, whew!" and pulled his whiskers, now this one and that,and exclaimed:

"Bless my soul! You don't mean it!" and fidgeted inside his chair. "Ididn't suppose it was so usual, I didn't! God bless my soul!"

"It's their nature," exclaimed Captain Buckingham at length. "They'remade that way."

"You don't mean it!"