to record that the end of his career
did indeed come as Dame Dermody had foretold it. Before we had been a
year in America, the total collapse of his land speculation was followed
by his death. The catastrophe was complete. But for my mother's little
income (settled on her at her marriage) we should both have been left
helpless at the mercy of the world.

We made some kind friends among the hearty and hospitable people of the
United States, whom we were unaffectedly sorry to leave. But there were
reasons which inclined us to return to our own country after my father's
death; and we did return accordingly.

Besides her brother-in-law (already mentioned in the earlier pages of my
narrative), my mother had another relative--a cousin named Germaine--on
whose assistance she mainly relied for starting me, when the time came,
in a professional career. I remember it as a family rumor, that Mr.
Germaine had been an unsuccessful suitor for my mother's hand in the
days when they were young people together. He was still a bachelor at
the later period when his eldest brother's death without issue placed
him in possession of a handsome fortune. The accession of wealth made
no difference in his habits of life: he was a lonely old man, estranged
from his other relatives, when my mother and I returned to England. If
I could only succeed in pleasing Mr. Germaine, I might consider my
prospects (in some degree, at least) as being prospects assured.

This was one consideration that influenced us in leaving America. There
was another--in which I was especially interested--that drew me back to
the lonely shores of Greenwater Broad.

My only hope of recovering a trace of Mary was to make inquiries among
the cottagers in the neighborhood of my old home. The good bailiff had
been heartily liked and respected in his little sphere. It seemed at
least possible that some among his many friends in Suffolk might have
discovered traces of him, in the year that had passed since I had left
England. In my dreams of Mary--and I dreamed of her constantly--the
lake and its woody banks formed a frequent background in the visionary
picture of my lost companion. To the lake shores I looked, with a
natural superstition, as to my way back to the one life that had its
promise of happiness for _me_--my life with Mary.

On our arrival in London, I started for Suffolk alone--at my mother's
request. At her age she naturally shrank from revisiting the home scenes