e leaped high, as if desirous of going
up the chimney altogether, and the huge kettle sat thereon, leaning
back, with its spout in the air, pouring its very heart out in a joyous
domestic song.

Need we say that the united party made the most of their opportunity?
They spoke of the golden land, of their toils and joys, their successes
and losses, and of their Heavenly Father's guiding hand. The
ex-gold-diggers, Baldwin Burr and Jacob Buckley, fought their battles
over again, and sang the camp-fire songs. Philosopher Jack sat beside
his mother, who was a little deaf, to explain the miners' slang and
point the jokes. Watty Wilkins became involved in Susan, and was
comparatively useless; but he laughed at the jokes, whether he saw them
or not, and joined with telling effect in the choruses. Polly sang, in
a voice that corresponded with her sweet face, two or three of the hymns
with which they had been wont to make vocal the palm grove on the coral
island in the southern seas, and Philosopher Jack related the story of
the slaying of the bear at Grizzly Bear Gulch. All this was a rare
treat to the family from the lonely cottage on the Border, the younger
members of which had by that time ascended, through Christian example
and improved education, to a high level in the social scale. Dobbin, in
particular, had become a strapping youth of gentlemanly mien, and would
as soon have thought of shoe-blacking as of treacle to his bread. He
retained a sneaking fondness for it, however, especially when presented
in the form of golden syrup.

But we must not prolong the scene. It is sufficient to say that they
had a glorious night of it, on strictly temperance principles, which
culminated and drew to a close when Captain Samson, opening his Bible,
and reading therefrom many precious promises, drew his friends' minds
from things seen and temporal to things unseen and eternal. Thereafter
he prayed that neither he nor they should be permitted to forget that a
loving Father holds the helm and guides the souls of his people, whether
in joy or in sorrow, success or failure, through time into eternity.

And now it is incumbent on us to draw our story to a close.

On the day following the feast Captain Samson called with his chief mate
on the writer of the important letter, and found that his principal
chest of gold had indeed been fished up from the deep. He and O'Rook
were able to give so correct an account of its contents that