Mrs. Huntington was a lady of polished manner and cultivated intellect, belonging to what might be termed the old school of English gentlewomen.  She had reared her only child with jealous care and assiduous attention, so that her mind had been richly stored in classic lore, and her hands duly instructed in domestic duties.  There was no mock-modesty about the mother, she was straightforward and literal in all she said or did; evidently of excellent family, she was sufficiently assured of her position not to be sensitive about its recognition by others, and preferred to instil into her daughter’s mind sound wholesome principles to useless and giddy accomplishments.  And yet the daughter was accomplished, an excellent musician upon the piano and harp, and a vocalist of rare sweetness and perfection of execution, as well as mistress of other usual studies of her sex.

But the idea we would convey is, that the mother had rather endeavored to fill her child’s mind with real information and knowledge, than to teach her that the chief end and aim of life were to learn how to captivate a husband; she preferred to make her daughter a true and noble-hearted woman, possessed of intrinsic excellence, rather than to make her marketable for matrimonial sale; to give her something that would prove to her under any and all circumstances, a reliance viz., sound principles and an excellent education.

“Mother, how long before we shall turn our face towards England?” said the daughter, soon after the scene which we have described of the sailing ship and her commander.

“Within the month I hope, my child.  I have already directed the solicitor to close up all his business relative to your father’s estate, and the next homeward-bound ship may bear us in it.”

“I shall feel sad to leave our peaceful home here, mother, for, save my dear father’s death, has been very pleasant, very happy to be here.”

“There are many dear associations that must ever hang about its memory, my dear; but after all, we shall be returning to our native land, and that is a sweet thought.  It is some twelve years since we lost sight of English soil.”

“I remember it most vividly,” said the child, recalling the past; “ay, as though it were but yesterday!”

That night, as she lay sleeping in her daintily-furnished apartment, into which the soft night-air was admitted through sweet geranium and mignonette, which bloomed and shed their perfume with rare sweetness, she dreamed of her native land, of him who had that day left her so disappointed, of her childhood, and all its happy memories, and of much that we will not refer to lest we anticipate our story.

CHAPTER VI.

The wreck.