“Well, after all, the difference between a barrister and a solicitor is not so great.”

“True; but the exercises to which he has been accustomed previously unfit him for the drudgeries of his new employment, and he soon abandons that, just as he abandoned the other two.”

“Your friend Peter is somewhat difficult to please,” said Jack.

“He then goes into business, a term which may mean a great deal or nothing at all; it admits of one’s going about idle with the appearance of being fully occupied.  Then a few unsuccessful speculations bring him back, at the end of his days, to the point whence he started—­that is, zero.”

“Ah, yes, I see now,” cried Jack, whilst he traced a diagram on the ground.  “Poor Peter has always stopped in the middle of each profession and gone back to the starting point of another, thus passing his life in making zig-zags, and only moving from one zero to another.”

“Exactly,” added Wolston:  “whilst those who persevered in following up the profession they chose at first finally succeeded in attaining a position, and that simply by adhering to a straight line.”

Here Fritz and his mother arrived, arm in arm.

“Ha! there you are,” cried Ernest.  “We were on our way to meet you.”

“You surely do not call sitting down there being on your way to meet us, do you?”

“Well, yes, mother,” suggested Jack, “on the principle that two bodies coming into contact meet each other.”

Like those flowers that droop during a storm, but recover their brilliancy with the first rays of the sun, so a few days more sufficed to restore Mary Wolston to better health than she had ever enjoyed in her life before.  Some months now elapsed without giving rise to any event of note.  All the men, women, and children in the colony had been busily employed from early morn to late at e’en.  No sooner had one field been sown than there was another to plant; then came the grain harvest and its hard but healthy toil; next, much to the delight of Willis, herrings appeared on the coast, followed by their attendant demons, the sea-dogs; salmon-fishing, hunting ortolans, the foundries and manufactories, likewise exacted a portion of their time.  Frequently parties were occupied for weeks together in the remote districts; so that, with the exception of one day each week—­the Sabbath—­the two families had of late been rarely assembled together in one spot.

The hope of ever again beholding the Nelson had gradually ceased to be entertained by anybody.  Like an echo that resounds from rock to rock until it is lost in the distance, this hope had died away in their breasts.  Willis nevertheless continued to keep the beacon on Shark’s Island alight; but he regarded it more as a sepulchral lamp in commemoration of the dead, than as a signal for the living.

One morning, the break of day was announced by a cannon-shot.  All instantly started on their feet and gazed inquiringly in each other’s faces.  One thing forced itself upon all their thoughts—­daybreak generally arrives without noise; it is not accustomed to announce itself with gunpowder; like real merit, it requires no flourish of trumpets to announce its advent.