“Well, Bessy, you ought to make friends with him, for, without his arm, your father would not have been back here quite so soon.  He beat down the Frenchmen, one after another, in good style, when they attempted to recover the vessel—­that he did, I can tell you, wounded as he was.”

“Wounded?” cried Bessy, starting, her eyes running over me to find out where.

“Yes, with a bullet in his leg; I didn’t like to say a word about it in the letter.  But I suppose if he had been killed you would not have cared?”

“Oh, father!” cried Bessy, as she turned toward me, and I received her in my arms.

Bessy soon recovered her smiles, and thankful for our preservation and good fortune, and satisfied with our mutual affection, we passed a most happy evening.  Somehow or another Bramble, having sent Mrs. Maddox on a message, found out that it was very sultry indoors, and that he would take his pipe on the beach.  He left me alone with Bessy; and now, for the first time, I plainly told her the state of my affections, and asked her to consent to be my wife.  I did not plead in vain, as the reader may suppose from what he has already been made acquainted with.

After Bessy had retired, and I was sitting with Bramble, who had his glass of grog and pipe as usual, I made him acquainted with my success.

“All right, Tom,” said he, “I’m thankful—­and God bless you both.”

And had I not reason also to be thankful?  When I had retired to my room that night, I thought over the various passages in my life.  What might I have been if Providence had not watched over me?  When neglected in my youth, in a situation which exposed me to every temptation, had not old Anderson been sent as a guardian to keep me in the right path, to instruct me, and to give me that education without which my future success might have turned out a disadvantage instead of a source of gratitude?  In Bramble, again, I had met with a father, to supply the place of one who was not in a situation to do his duty to me or forward me in life.  In old Nanny I had met with a kind friend, one who, at the same time that she would lead me right, was a warning to me from her sufferings.  To Mrs. St. Felix I was equally indebted, and had I not been permitted to pay the debt of gratitude to both of them?  Even my mother’s harshness, which appeared at first to my short-sightedness to have been so in-defensible, was of great advantage to me, as it had stimulated me to exertion and industry, and pointed out to me the value of independence.  Was I not also most fortunate in having escaped from the entanglement of Janet, who, had I married her, would, in all probability, have proved a useless if not a faithless helpmate; and still more so, in finding that there was, as it were, especially reserved for me the affection of such a noble, right-minded creature as Bessy?  My life, commenced in rags and poverty, had, by industry and exertion, and the kindness of