hed in grief, and Mrs. Greville's character was too unselfish to
refuse her sympathy in joy.

A few weeks after the receipt of that letter, Mr. Hamilton, his wife,
and Ellen removed to a beautiful little villa in the neighbourhood of
Richmond, where they intended to pass some of the winter months. A
change was desirable, indeed requisite for all. But a short interval had
passed since the death of their beloved Herbert, and there were many
times when the parents' hearts yet painfully bled, and each felt
retirement, the society of each other, and sometimes of their most
valued friends, the exercise of domestic and religious duties, would be
the most efficient means of acquiring that peace of which even the
greatest affliction cannot deprive the truly religious mind. At
Christmas, St. Eval had promised his family should join them, and all
looked forward to that period with pleasure.

CHAPTER X.

Although we are as much averse to retrospection in a tale as our readers
can be, yet to retrace our steps for a short interval is a necessity.
Edward had written highly of Lieutenant Mordaunt, but as he happens to
be a personage of rather more consequence to him than young Fortescue
imagined, we must be allowed to introduce him more intimately to our
readers.

It was the evening after that in which Lieutenant Fortescue had so
rashly encountered the storm, that a Spanish vessel, of ill-shaped bulk
and of some hundred tons, was slowly pursuing her course from the coast
of Guinea towards Rio Janeiro. The sea was calm, almost motionless,
compared with its previous fearful agitation. The sailors were gaily
employed in their various avocations, declaring loudly that this respite
of calm was entirely owing to the interposition of St. Jago in their
favour, he being the saint to whom they had last appealed during the
continuance of the tempest. Aloof from the crew, and leaning against a
mast, stood one apparently very different to those by whom he was
surrounded. It was an English countenance, but embrowned almost to a
swarthy hue, from continued exposure to a tropical sun. Tall and
remarkably well formed, he might well have been supposed of noble birth;
there were, however, traces of long-continued suffering imprinted on his
manly face and in his form, which sometimes was slightly bent, as if
from weakness rather than from age. His dark brown hair was in many
parts silvered with grey, which made him appear as if he had seen som