thither, in order to have the pleasure of wafting to them, in that manner, a last adieu. The ho nest sailor's heart filled again. He called to his lads to stand to their guns, and to give a royal salute, a piece of service honest Jack Markham performed with the greatest alacrity and pleasure. They scudded along, with a fine breeze, and the group of figures on the headland, and then the bold rock itself, and all its grand accompanying features, melted into distance, and, like the passing events of human life, they dissolved as perfectly away from the visual orb as if they had never existed as realities before it. How often, alas! does it happen, that even the very image of those kind beings, who have been thus left behind, vanishes with the substantial form of the land that holds them! But theirs were not hearts of such materials as to allow grateful remembrances to be thus transient. There was, indeed, one individual beneath those fleecy clouds hanging over the misty mountains, from which they were so fast retreating, whose form and face was ever present to the mind of Amherst. With her he held such intercourse as two kindred souls will hold with each other, however distant, or however divided they

may be in body; and this rendered him quite unfit for every other species of converse. Cleaver had judgment enough to perceive that it would have been cruel, as well as vain, to harass him by attempts to break in upon his thoughts. Besides, his whole mind was engaged in the navigation of his little vessel, so Amherst was left to the undisturbed possession of himself during the voyage, which was prosperous, and devoid of all adventure.

The old Admiral was so rejoiced to behold his son again, that for a time he quite forgot to upbraid him for the decided step he had taken, in quitting Oakenwold Manor.

After his first parental embraces were over, however, and Aunt Margery had pressed forward to have her share, and was in the act of loading her nephew with every possible term of endearment, in her shrill and piping treble, Sir Cable's deep grumbling thorough bass was heard to come rolling in, like the growl of the approaching storm, becoming louder and louder, until it broke articulately forth.

"Why, Ammy, my fine fellow, it was but a scurvy trick you and the old porpus Cleaver

served me after all, to slip your cable and go to sea, without giving your father and Admiral a signal of your intentions; above all, you, who both of you knew me so well. Why, zounds, Sir, what did you take me for? Did you suppose that I would not have listened to reason? You know very well that I am always disposed to lend an ear to sound argument, and to do what is fair and proper, when things are put in their true light. Then to be away in another country for so long a time, without so much as a scrape of a pen to let me know whether you were dead or alive, or to inquire for your old father! Why, Sir, I have been cursedly ill, Sir !-very ill, indeed, with the infernal gout,—all owing to your having ruffled my temper, too!-though, Heaven knows, I never get into a passion !—that is, except when I have very good cause! I swear I had a great mind to have married Miss Delassaux myself!"

"Dear me," exclaimed Miss Margery, "dear me, brother Cable, that would have been a strange match!"

"Strange, you old goose! and what would have been strange about it?-Sure as old men as

I am have married,―aye, and have had large families too!"

"Very true, brother Cable,-and to be sure, she is a fine, sensible, clever, sweet disposed girl, Miss Delassaux, and a great admirer of canary birds, for so she told me, the very last time she saw mine. Miss Oakenwold, says she to

"Pshaw! damn it, Madge, never mind what she said!-You're an old fool I tell ye!-Miss Delassaux is artful enough, I dare say, but as to sense, I don't believe she has an ounce of it in her whole composition, after what I have heard. of the manner in which she has ruined her fortune by her fooleries and gewgaws. And then as to sweet temper !-report belies her confoundedly, if she be not a very devil under the mask of an angel. Now, to tell you the truth, Amherst," said he, turning again to his son, "we have escaped a coral reef in steering clear of that same syren. Her singing, and her guitaring, and her soft looks, and long eye-lashes, might have made a hole in my heart, old and tough as it is; but I have heard such accounts of her extravagance, as well as of her violent temper, (a fault, by the

bye, I particularly abominate, the more, perhaps, because it is one I never give way to myself, and, consequently, have less excuse for in others,) that you were not gone a fortnight, till I firmly resolved in my own mind, that you should have nothing to do with her. But heyday! what's the matter with you, lad?-you don't seem well, -surely you don't begin to regret that the match is broken off?-though, zounds! nothing is more likely, such is the perverse disposition of youth. But I don't care.-Remember I have said it, Sir, and I will be obeyed.-You shall never match with that damned Italianized piece of folly, if there were ne'er a woman in England besides,— so don't pretend to say you will,-I won't be made a fool of, I tell ye !-so don't put me in a passion!".

And saying so, (though one foot still wore the large gouty shoe, and he was yet very lame,) he put his crutches under his arm, and with an alacrity he had not displayed since we last had oc'casion to notice him, he stumped backwards and forwards on his quarter-deck, fuming and fretting, and, at the same time, grinning and wincing with each new twinge of the gout, till, exhausted