than they produce belief; but I do not say this without reflection, and, I may add, without feeling.  She whom I once did hope to persuade to marry me, although much my friend, is not accustomed to view me with the eyes that lead to love.  We were brought together under circumstances that have probably induced her to regard me more as a brother than as a suitor, and while the golden moments have passed away, her affections have become the property of another.  I resemble, in this particular at least, our regretted Grace, and am not likely to change.  My nature may be sterner, and my constitution stronger, than those of my poor sister proved to be, but I feel I cannot love twice; not as I have, and still do love, most certainly.  Why should I trouble you with all this, however?  I know you 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.