ould not help recalling to mind the words of
Bramble, "Observe how she performs those duties which fall to her lot;
if she is a good daughter she will make a good wife." I felt that she
would make a good wife, and I wished that I could have torn from my
bosom the remembrance of Janet, and have substituted the form of Bessy
in her place. We had been at the cottage nearly a week, when I received
a letter from Anderson; he informed me that he had visited old Nanny,
who had made her will in due form, and confided to him, and that he
thought she was more inclined to listen to him than she had before been;
that my father and mother and sister were well, and that Spicer had been
obliged to go into the hospital with an abscess in his knee, occasioned
by running something into it, and that it was reported that he was very
ill, and, in all probability, amputation must take place. I felt
convinced that Spicer must have, in his hasty retreat, fallen over the
iron railings which lay on the ground, and which had, as I mentioned,
tripped me up; but with this difference, that, as the spikes of the
railing were from me, and consequently I met with little injury, they
must have been toward him, and had penetrated his knee, and thus it was
that he had received the injury. Anderson also stated that they were
very busy at the hospital, receiving the men who had been maimed in the
glorious battle of Trafalgar. Altogether, I made up my mind that I would
take the first ship that was offered for pilotage up the river, that I
might know more of what was going on; and, as we sat down to supper, I
mentioned my intentions to Bramble.

"All's right. Tom, you're young, and ought to be moving; but just now I
intend to take a spell on shore. I have promised Bessy, and how can I
refuse her anything, dear girl? I don't mean to say that I shall never
pilot a vessel again, but I do feel that I am not so young as I was, and
this last affair has shaken me not a little, that's the truth of it.
There's a time for all things, and when a man has enough he ought to be
content, and not venture more. Besides, I can't bear to make Bessy
unhappy; so, you see, I've half promised--only half, Bessy, you know."

"I think you would have done right if you had promised altogether,"
replied I; "you have plenty to live upon, and are now getting a little
in years. Why should you not stay on shore, and leave them to work who
want the money?"

Bessy's eyes beamed gratefully to