“That I can’t tell; my nephew told me somewhere down the river; but it’s a long way from here to the Nore.  Nephew’s a fine lad; I sent him off to the East Indies.”

“I am sorry then that I have no chance of seeing him:—­but you are busy, brother?”

“I have told you so three times, as plain as I could speak!”

“I will no longer trespass on your time.  We return home to-morrow morning; and, as I cannot expect ever to see you again, God bless you, my dear John! and farewell, I am afraid I may say, in this world at least, farewell for ever!”

Edward held out his hand to his brother.  It was taken with considerable emotion.  “Farewell, brother, farewell!—­I’ll not forget.”

“Good-bye, sir,” said Amber, going close up to John Forster.

“Good-bye, my little girl,” replied he, looking earnestly in her face; and then, as if thawing towards her, as he scanned her beautiful and expressive features, removing his spectacles and kissing her, “Good-bye.”

“Oh! papa,” cried Amber, as she went out of the room, “he kissed me!”

“Humph!” said John Forster, as the door closed upon them.

The spectacles were put on, and the reading of the brief immediately continued.

Chapter XXXIV

  “Strickland.—­These doings in my house distract me. 
  I met a fine gentleman; when I inquired who
  He was—­why, he came to Clarinda.  I met
  A footman too, and he came to Clarinda. 
  My wife had the character of a virtuous
  Woman——.”

       “Suspicious Husband.”

  “Let us no more contend
  Each other, blamed enough elsewhere, but strive
  In offices of love, how we may lighten
  Each other’s burden in our share of woe.”

       MILTON.

I do not know a spot on the globe which astonishes and delights, upon your first landing, as the island of Madeira.

The voyager embarks, and is in all probability confined to his cabin, suffering under the dreadful protraction of sea-sickness.  Perhaps he has left England in the gloomy close of the autumn, or the frigid concentration of an English winter.  In a week, or even in a shorter period, he again views that terra firma which he had quitted with regret, and which in his sufferings he would have given half that he possessed to regain.

When he lands upon the island, what a change!  Winter has become summer, the naked trees which he left are exchanged for the most luxuriant and varied foliage, snow and frost for warmth and splendour; the scenery of the temperate zone for the profusion and magnificence of the tropics; fruit which he had never before seen, supplies for the table unknown to him; a bright sky, a glowing sun, hills covered with vines, a deep-blue sea, a picturesque and novel costume; all meet and delight the eye, just at the precise moment when to have been landed, even upon a barren island, would have been considered as a luxury.  Add to all this, the unbounded hospitality of the English residents, a sojourn too short to permit satiety; and then is it to be wondered that the island of Madeira is a “green spot” in the memory of all those who land there, or that they quit it with regret?