But Augusta was not the only person who with sorrow watched the departure of the Harpoon.  First, there was little Dick, who had acquired a fine Yankee drawl, and grown quite half an inch on board of her, and who fairly howled when his particular friend, a remarkably fierce and grisly-looking boatswain, brought him as a parting offering a large whale’s tooth, patiently carved by himself with a spirited picture of their rescue on Kerguelen Land.  Then there was Mrs. Thomas herself.  When they finally reached the island of St. Michael, in the Azores, Augusta had offered to pay fifty pounds, being half of the hundred sovereigns given to her by Mr. Meeson, to Captain Thomas as a passage fee, knowing that he was by no moans overburdened with the goods of this world.  But he stoutly declined to touch a farthing, saying that it would be unlucky to take money from a castaway.  Augusta as stoutly insisted; and, finally, a compromise was come to.  Mrs. Thomas was anxious, being seized with that acute species of home-sickness from which Suffolk people are no more exempt than other folk, to visit the land where she was born and the people midst whom she was bred up.  But this she could not well afford to do.  Therefore, Augusta’s proffered fifty pounds was appropriated to this purpose, and Mrs. Thomas stopped with Augusta at Ponta Delgada, waiting for the London and West India Line Packet to take them to Southampton.

So it came to pass that they stood together on the Ponta Delgada breakwater and together saw the Harpoon sail off towards the setting sun.

Then came a soft dreamy fortnight in the fair island of St. Michael, where nature is ever as a bride, and never reaches the stage of the hard-worked, toil-worn mother, lank and lean with the burden of maternity.  The mental act of looking back to this time, in after years, always recalled to Augusta’s senses the odor of orange-blossoms, and the sight of the rich pomegranate-bloom blushing the roses down.  It was a pleasant time, for the English Consul there most hospitably entertained them—­with much more personal enthusiasm, indeed, than he generally considered it necessary to show towards shipwrecked voyagers—­a class of people of whom consular representatives abroad must get rather tired with their eternal misfortunes and their perennial want of clothes.  Indeed, the only drawback to her enjoyment was that the Consul, a gallant official, with red hair, equally charmed by her adventures, her literary fame, and her person, showed a decided disposition to fall in love with her, and a red-haired and therefore ardent Consular officer is, under those circumstances, a somewhat alarming personage.  But the time went on without anything serious happening; and, at last, one morning after breakfast, a man came running up with the information that the mail was in sight.

And so Augusta took an affectionate farewell of the golden-haired Consul, who gazed at her through his eyeglass, and sighed when he thought of what might have been in the sweet by-and-by; and the ship’s bell rang, and the screw began to turn, leaving the Consul still sighing on the horizon; and in due course Augusta and Mrs. Thomas found themselves standing on the quay at Southampton, the centre of an admiring and enthusiastic crowd.