the
remaining cow, and her calf, but several of the goats. Convinced he
might now depend on Heaton and Socrates to sail the pinnace, and Anne
expressing a perfect willingness to remain on the Peak, in company with
Teresa and Dido, Mark resolved to proceed to the crater with his two
Bridgets, feeling the propriety of no longer neglecting the property in
that quarter of his dominions. There was nothing to excite apprehension,
and the women had all acquired a certain amount of resolution that more
properly belonged to their situation than to their sex or nature. Anne's
great object of concern was the baby. As long as that was safe,
everything with her was going on well; and Dido being a renowned baby
doctor, and all the simples for a child's ailings being in the
possession of the young mother, she raised no objection whatever to her
brother's quitting her.

Bridget had great impatience to make this voyage, for she longed to see
the spot where her husband had passed so many days in solitude.
Everything he had mentioned, in their many conferences on this subject,
was already familiar to her in imagination; but, she wished to become
more intimately acquainted with each and all. For Kitty she really
entertained a decided fondness, and even the pigs, as Mark's companions,
had a certain romantic value in her eyes.

The morning was taken for the departure, and just as the little craft
got out from under the lee of the Peak, and began to feel the true
breeze, the sun rose gloriously out of the eastern waves, lighting the
whole of the blue waters with his brilliant rays. Never did Vulcan's
Peak appear more grand or more soft--for grandeur or sublimity, blended
with softness, make the principal charm of noble tropical scenery--than
it did that morning; and Bridget looked up at the dark, overhanging
cliffs, with a smile, as she said--

"We may love the Reef, dear Mark, for what it did for you in your
distress, but I foresee that this Eden will eventually become our home."

"There are many things to render this mountain preferable to the Reef;
though, now we are seriously thinking of a colony, it may be well to
keep both. Even Rancocus would be of great value to us, as a pasture for
goats, and a range for cattle. It may be long before the space will be
wanted by human beings, for actual cultivation; but each of our present
possessions is now, and long will continue to be, of great use to us as
assistants. We shall live principally