, as I always said would be the case?"

"Hush, hush," said Miss Sally, looking towards Mary and her father, who,
with Ned, were seated at the window. "It is about Mr Shank I wish to
tell you. The old man is dead, and it was partly about his affairs that
Mr Farrance came down here, or they would have sent for Mary and me to
London. It is a very extraordinary story. He was once a miser, and
although suffering apparently from poverty, had no less than thirty
thousand pounds, which he has left to our dear Mary. He did so before
he knew he was her grandfather, which he turns out without doubt to have
been. His only daughter married Mr Farrance, and was lost in the
Indian seas on board the ship from which you saved Mary and Tom. Mary
was with the old man until his death, and was a great comfort to him,
but she had not the slightest suspicion that he intended to leave her a
sixpence. From what our friend Mr Thorpe had said, however, I was not
so much surprised as I might otherwise have been. Mary had so
interested him in the sufferings of the Africans, caused by the slave
trade, that he left a note expressing his hope that she would employ
such means as she might have at her disposal to better their condition,
especially by the establishment of missions, which he expressed his
belief would prove the best way for accomplishing that end."

No one would have supposed from Mary's manner that she had suddenly
become an heiress. Indeed no one was more astonished than Ned when he
heard the account Miss Sally had given his uncle. It seemed, indeed, to
afford him much less satisfaction than might have been supposed. Her
wealth, however, was not increased by her father's death, which occurred
a short time afterwards.

Several years passed away; by that time Africa had been explored by the
many energetic travellers who have so greatly benefited its people by
acting as pioneers to the missionaries who have since gone forth to
carry to them the blessings of the Gospel.

Mary had to wait until she was of age before she inherited her
grandfather's property, when she became the wife of honest Ned Garth,
then a commander, and who, greatly to his surprise, found that Mr
Farrance had settled on him a sum equal to her fortune.

Mary did not forget Mr Shank's wishes, nor did Ned the scenes he had
witnessed in Africa, both ever showing a warm interest in its
dark-skinned races by contributing liberally towards the support of
every