hey said, was all the better, as he could
not take it away with him when he died. An end, however, was soon put
to all their worldly ideas, for a year after I was born, my father was
drowned at sea, his vessel and the whole of her crew being lost on the
Texel sands; and my mother found herself a widow, with a child scarcely
weaned, when she was but twenty-two years of age.

"It was supposed that my mother would still have sufficient to live
upon, as the ship had been insured at two-thirds of her value; but, to
the astonishment of everybody, Mr Masterman contrived to make it appear
that it was his two-thirds of the vessel which had been insured."

"What is insurance?" inquired William.

"Insurance, my dear boy, is paying a certain sum to people who are
called underwriters, that in case the vessel or cargo is lost or
damaged, the loss or damage is made good to the owners of the vessel or
cargo. You pay in proportion to the risk incurred. Supposing you
wished to insure one thousand pounds on a vessel or cargo, and ten per
cent was required, you would, if the vessel came home safe, pay the
underwriters one hundred pounds; if, on the contrary, the vessel was
lost, the underwriters would have to pay you one thousand pounds, the
sum which you had insured. I beg your pardon for the interruption,
Ready."

"No need, Mr Seagrave; we never should lose an opportunity of teaching
the young. Well, how far the assertion of Mr Masterman was correct or
not, it was impossible at the time to say; but I do know that everybody
cried out `shame', and that if he did deprive the widow, he had much to
answer for; for the Bible says, `Pure religion is to visit the
fatherless and the widows in their affliction, and to keep yourself
unspotted in the world'. The consequence was, that my mother had little
or nothing to live upon; but she found friends who assisted her, and she
worked embroidery, and contrived to get on somehow until I was eight or
nine years of age."

"But did not your godfather come forward to the assistance of your
mother?" inquired Mr Seagrave.

"No, sir, strange to say, he did not; and that made people talk the
more. I believe it was the abuse of him, which he did not fail to hear,
and which he ascribed to my mother, which turned him away from us;
perhaps it was his own conscience, for we always dislike those we have
injured."

"Unfortunately, there is great truth in that remark of yours, Ready,"
observed Mr Seagr