le old
landlord of the house and his son to witness, and it was to be sent, on
her death, to my kind friend, Mrs Henley. That paper, or one very like
it, I afterwards saw my nurse destroy.

"On my mother's death, I was sent to Mrs Henley, my nurse insisting
that I should spend the holidays with her. For the first year or two
she was very kind, and I had nothing to complain of; but after she
married Captain Podgers, her conduct changed very much, I suspect in
consequence of her having taken to drinking. I did not find this out at
the time, though I thought her occasionally very odd. She insisted that
she was my guardian, and showed me my mother's handwriting to prove her
authority; and I felt that it was my duty to obey her, though I lived in
hopes that by my father's return I should be freed from her control.

"Year after year passed by. Then came the account of the capture and
destruction of his ship and loss of many of her officers, though no
information as to his fate could be obtained. All I knew, to my grief,
was that he did not return. Still I have a hope amounting almost to
confidence that he is alive. The thought that I might possibly meet
with him made me less unwilling than I should otherwise have been to
obey Mrs Podgers' commands to accompany her on the voyage she was about
to make. Her sole motive, I suspect, in wishing me to go, was to save
the expense of my continuing at school. Still I wonder sometimes how I
could have ventured on board, suspecting, as I had already done, the
hypocritical character of the woman who had pretended to be so devoted
to my mother and me."

"You have, at all events, proved an inestimable blessing to me," said
the young officer. "Even when I first saw you, I could not believe that
you were really the daughter of such people as the captain and his
wife."

I do not know that I had before thought much about the matter, but when
I heard now, for the first time, that Miss Kitty was not related to the
captain and his wife, I felt a sort of relief, and could not help
exclaiming, "Oh, I am so glad!" She smiled as she looked at me, but she
made no reply either to mine or Mr Falconer's remark. She gave us
both, I have no doubt, credit for sincerity.

Although our visits to the wounded mate occupied a good deal of our
time--I say our visits, for I always accompanied Miss Kitty--we did not
neglect the other wounded men.

We went, indeed, to see poor Jonas Webb several t