of his term of service. The death of an uncle in
India recruited his finances, and he returned to New York. It afterwards
appeared that he had some clew to Peter Belgrave's missing million, and he
was therefore anxious to recover the possession of the wife who had
repudiated him.

A successful conspiracy enabled him to convey her to Bermuda. At this stage
of the drama, Captain Royal Ringgold, an early admirer of the pretty widow,
became an active participant in the proceedings, and from that time he had
been the director of all the steps taken to recover Louis's mother.

In the interim of Scoble's absence, Louis, assisted by his schoolfellow and
devoted friend, Felix McGavonty, had accomplished what his father had
failed to achieve in ten years of incessant search: he had found the
missing million of his grandfather, and had become a millionaire at
sixteen. The young man fancied that yachting would suit him; and he
proposed to Squire Moses Scarburn, the trustee of all his property, to
purchase a cheap vessel for his use.

The spiriting away of his mother gave a new importance to the nautical
fancy of the young man. Captain Ringgold condemned the plan to buy a cheap
vessel. He had made a part of his ample fortune as a shipmaster, and had
been an officer in the navy during the last half of the War of the
Rebellion. He advised the young man's mother, who was also his guardian,
and the trustee to buy a good-sized steam-yacht.

A New York millionaire had just completed one of the most magnificent
steamers ever built, of over six hundred tons' burden; but his sudden death
robbed him of the pleasures he anticipated from a voyage around the world
in her, and the vessel was for sale at a reasonable price. The shipmaster
fixed upon this craft as the one for the young millionaire, declaring that
she would give the owner an education such as could not be obtained at any
college; and that she could be sold for nearly all she cost when she was no
longer needed.

This argument, and the pressing necessity of such a steamer for the
recovery of Mrs. Belgrave, carried the day with the trustee. The vessel
was bought; and as she had not yet been named, Louis called her the
Guardian-Mother, in love and reverence for her who had watched over him
from his birth. After some stirring adventures which befell Louis, the new
steam-yacht proceeded to Bermuda, where Scoble had wrecked his vessel on
the reefs; but the object of the search and all