had me put in a frigate when I was only twelve, an age at which one knows very little of Ciceros or Dantes or Corneilles, even as you will confess.  Thus, when I found myself in the presence of a gentleman whose reputation for learning has reached far beyond the island he so admirably governs, a silly ambition has led me into a folly that he finds it hard to forgive.  If I have talked of names of which I know nothing, it may be a weakness such as young men will fall into; but surely it is no heinous crime.”

“You allow, Signore, that there has been no English Sir Cicero?”

“The truth compels me to say, I know nothing about it.  But it is hard for a very young man, and one, too, that feels his deficiencies of education, to admit all this to a philosopher on a first acquaintance.  It becomes a different thing when natural modesty is encouraged by a familiar goodness of heart; and a day’s acquaintance with the Signor Barrofaldi is as much as a year with an ordinary man.”

“If this be the case, Sir Smees, I can readily understand, and as willingly overlook what has passed,” returned the vice-governatore, with a self-complacency that in nothing fell short of that which Vito Viti had so recently exhibited.  “It must be painful to a sensitive mind to feel the deficiencies which unavoidably accompany the want of opportunities for study; and I at least can now say how delightful it is to witness the ingenuousness which admits it.  Then, if England has never possessed a Cicero in name, doubtless she has had many in qualifications, after allowing for the halo which time ever throws around a reputation.  Should your duty often call you this way, Signore, during the summer, it will add to the pleasure I experience in enjoying the advantage of your acquaintance, to be permitted, in some slight degree, to direct your reading to such works as, with a mind like yours, will be certain to lead to profit and pleasure.”

Raoul made a suitable acknowledgment for this offer, and from that moment the best understanding existed between the parties.  The privateersman, who had received a much better education than he pretended to, and who was a consummate actor as well as, on certain occasions, a practised flatterer, determined to be more cautious in future, sparing his literary conjectures, whatever liberties he might take with other subjects.  And yet this reckless and daring mariner never flattered nor deceived Ghita in anything!  With her he had been all sincerity, the influence he had obtained over the feelings of that pure-minded girl being as much the result of the nature and real feeling he had manifested, as of his manly appearance and general powers of pleasing.  It would have been, indeed, matter of interesting observation for one curious in the study of human nature to note how completely the girl’s innocence and simplicity of character had extended itself over every act of the young man that was any way connected with her; preventing his