to endure the same torments as my poor father, without the
alleviation of some other gentle hand to heal my wounds. Wounds! Pooh!
stuff! What romantic twaddle I am talking! It is time I was off back
to sea. But, there, I've fought against it, all for their sakes, till
it has been enough to drive me mad. I suppose men were meant to be
butterflies, and to burn their wings in the light of some particular
star; so the sooner I get mine singed off, and get on board ship, the
better. There's no romance there. Anything's better than this state of
torment. Here am I, making myself disagreeable to the best of fathers
and the tenderest of mothers; and because things run in a rut different
from that which suits me, I go sulking about like a spoiled child in
love with a jam-pot; and after making everybody miserable at home, go
sneaking and wandering about after the fashion of a confounded tramp
poaching somebody's goslings. I expect I shall be locked up one of
these days. Seriously, though, I wish I had not come back," he said,
dreamily; "I wish that a reconciliation were possible; I wish I had
never seen her; I wish--I wish--There, what is the good of wishing?
What a wretched life this is, and how things do contrive to get in a
state of tangle! I don't think I ever tried to meet her, and yet how
often, day after day, we seem to encounter! Even the thought of the old
past sorrows seems to bring her closer and closer. Why, then, should
not this be the means of bringing old sorrows to an end, and linking
together the two families?"

Brace Norton brought his ponderings to a close, as, bit by bit, he
recalled the past; and then he groaned in spirit, as his reason told him
how impossible was a reconciliation.

"I must dismiss it all," he at last said, bitterly. "They have had
their sufferings; I will not be so cowardly as to shrink from mine.
I'll take an interest in the governor's pursuits; and here goes to
begin. I'll run over to the Marsh, and see where they are pegging out
the drain; but I may as well take a gun, and see if I cannot bag a
couple or two of ducks."

Brace Norton's reverie had been in his own room; and with this
determination fresh upon him, he walked, cheery of aspect, into the room
where Captain and Mrs Norton had been discussing the unsatisfactory
turn matters had taken, when the young man's bright look, and apparently
buoyant spirits, came upon them like a burst of sunshine.

"Gun? Yes, my dea