ou will not accept of the necklace--though
so ready to give me your own last piece of gold, when I went to sea, you
have ever been so fastidious as to refuse every thing from us that had the
least appearance of a pecuniary obligation--and it is useless to say more
about it. I have no right to trouble you with my griefs, especially at a
moment when I know your affectionate heart is suffering so deeply from our
recent loss."

I will confess that, while writing this, I fancied I was making a sort of
half-declaration to Lucy; one that might, at least, give her some faint
insight into the real state of my heart; and I had a melancholy
satisfaction in thinking that the dear girl might, by these means, learn
how much I had prized and still did prize her. It was only a week later,
while pondering over what I had written, the idea occurred to me that
every syllable I had said would apply just as well to Emily Merton as to
Lucy Hardinge. Peculiar circumstances had made me intimately acquainted
with our young English friend, and these circumstances might well have
produced the very results I had mentioned. We all believed Emily's
affections to be engaged to Rupert, who must have succeeded during my
absence at sea. A modest and self-distrusting nature, like that of Lucy's,
would be very apt to turn to any other than herself in quest of the
original of my picture.

These letters occupied me for hours. That to Lucy, in particular, was very
long, and it was not written wholly without care. When all were done, and
sealed, and enveloped to the address of the post-master, I went on deck.
The pilot and Marble had not been idle while I had been below, for I
found the ship just weathering the south-west Spit, a position that
enabled me to make a fair wind of it past the Hook and out to sea.

Certainly I was in no haste to quit home. I was leaving my native land,
Clawbonny, the grave of my sister, and Lucy, dearest Lucy, all behind me;
and, at such an instant, one feels the ties that are about to be
separated. Still, every seaman is anxious for an offing, and glad was I to
see the head of the Dawn pointing in the right direction, with her yards
nearly square, and a fore-top-mast studding-sail set. The pilot was all
activity, and Marble, cool, clear-headed in his duty, and instinctively
acquainted with everything belonging to a vessel, was just the man to
carry out his views to his heart's content.

The ship went, rising and falling on the