e will watch over you, and preserve you in answer to my
heartfelt prayers, yet you are now starting on a longer voyage than you
have yet undertaken, and perchance I may not live to greet you on your
return!"

"Oh, mother, don't say that, don't say that!" exclaimed Eric in a heart-
broken voice; "you are not ill, you are not ailing, mother dear?" and he
peered anxiously with a loving gaze into her eyes, to try and read some
meaning there for the sorrowful presage that had escaped thus
inadvertently from her lips, drawn forth by the agony of parting.

"No, my darling, nothing very alarming," she said soothingly, wishing to
avoid distressing him needlessly by communicating what might really be
only, as she hoped, a groundless fear on her part. "I do not feel
exactly ill, dear. I was only speaking about the natural frail tenure
of this mortal life of ours. This saying `Good-bye' to you too, my
darling, makes me infected with morbid fear and nervous anxiety. Fancy
me nervous, Eric--I whom you call your strong-minded mother, eh?" and
the poor lady smiled bravely, so as to encourage the lad, and banish his
easily excited fears on her account. It was but a sickly smile,
however, for it did not come genuinely from the heart, prompted though
the latter was with the fullest affection. Still, Eric did not perceive
this, and the smile quickly dismissed his fears.

"Ha, ha," he laughed in his light-hearted, ringing way. "The idea of
your being nervous, like I remember old grandmother Grimple was when I
used to jump suddenly in at the door or fire my popgun! I would never
believe it, not even if you yourself said it. Ah, now you look better
already, and like my own dear little mother who will keep safe and well,
and welcome me back next year, surely; and then, dear one, we'll have no
end of a happy time!"

"I hope so, Eric; I hope so with all my heart," said she, pressing the
eager lad to her bosom in a fond embrace; "and you may be sure that none
will be so glad to welcome you back as I!"

"Think, mother," said Eric presently, after a moment's silence, in which
the feelings of the two seemed too great to find expression in words of
common import. "Why, by that time I will have nearly sailed round the
world; for in my voyage to Java and back I will have to `double the
Cape,' as sailors say!"

"Yes, that you will, my boy," chimed in his mother, anxious to sustain
this buoyant change in his humour, and drive away the som