No, let me take it; it's rather wet," he added as he started to lay the heavy overcoat over a chair.

"Wait a minute.

I've some violets for you if they are not crushed in my pocket.

They came last night," and he handed her a small parcel wrapped in tissue paper.
This done, he took his customary place on the rug with his back to the blazing logs and began unbuttoning his trim frock-coat, bringing to view a double-breasted, cream-white waistcoat--he still dressed as a man of thirty, and always in the fashion--as well as a fluffy scarf which Jane had made for him with her own fingers.
"And what have I interrupted ?" he asked, looking over the room.

"One of your sea yarns, captain ?"--here he reached over and patted the child's head, who had crept back to the captain's arms--"or some of my lady's news from Paris?
You tell me, Jane," he added, with a smile, opening his thin, white, almost transparent fingers and holding them behind his back to the fire, a favorite attitude.
"Ask the captain, John." She had regained her seat and was reaching out for her work-basket, the violets now pinned in her bosom--her eyes had long since thanked him.
"No, do YOU tell me," he insisted, moving aside the table with her sewing materials and placing it nearer her chair.
"Well, but it's the captain who should speak," Jane replied, laughing, as she looked up into his face, her eyes filled with his presence.