ng over the time, thirty years or more back, when with Piron there,
boys together, they all swam on the beach of that fine harbor. The old
school-house, too, with the tipsy old master, who whacked them soundly,
drunk or sober; their frolics at the fandangoes in Spanish Town; their
transient separations in after life on visits to France or the Old
Country; the hearty joy to meet again and drink Jamaica forever. And now
their companion in tropical heat and mountain shade was going to part
with them, and sail away over that restless ocean, never, perhaps, to
meet again!

Even old Clinker, as he sat on his stem by the old worm-eaten desk, with
his dried old lemon of a face lying in his leaves of hands--with no
light in the dark, deserted old counting-house--looked out between his
fibres of fingers and saw the cradle, with the sleeping twins within it,
while the rafters pressed him as flat as the old portfolio before him.
And now, as a drop or two of bitter juice exuded from his shriveled
rind, he saw those lovely twins floating away, never more to be saved
from an earthquake by old Clinker.

Mr. Mouse, likewise, was wide awake, and hopping about with a kangaroo
step, a little in doubt why Miss Rosalie was so pale, why those blue
eyes were so dim, and why she said to him "Go away, little one," with a
quivering, tremulous voice and hand. Mouse told Rat, and Rat told Martin
and Beaver, that the poor girl was in love with him, Tiny, and that he
would make it all right one of these days, when he got an epaulet on his
little shoulder.

Softly, like the cool breath of a slumbering child, came a faint air
from the land. The bell of the frigate, clanging in its brassy throat,
struck for midnight. The sentinels on their posts cried "All's well!"
The old brig was letting fall her top-sails, and the sound of the oars
in the cutter's row-locks ceased.

"Cleveland," said Piron, quietly, "while the ladies and our friends are
getting into the barge, come down with me in your cabin. I wish to have
a parting word with you."

So they go down.

"Now, my dear friend, you have seen as well as I how wildly those young
people are in love with each other; so has my wife and her sister; and,
indeed, _my_ sweet Rosalie seems more in love with him than our niece. I
have not had the heart to put a thorn in the path of their happiness,
and God grant it may all come right. But, Cleveland, you know that we
come from an old and noble stock, where th