t it is
cherished as a gift of her mother, I have thought it not well to take
from her the only memento of so near and, I trust, dear a relative.

"May God have you, my friend, in His holy keeping!"

XXVII.

Reuben, taking the advice of Captain Saul, with whom he would cheerfully
have gone to China, had the sloop been bound thither, came back to his
bunk on the first night after a wandering stroll through the lower part
of the city. It is quite possible that he would have done the same,
viewing the narrowness of his purse, upon the second night, had he not
encountered at noon a gentleman in close conversation with the Captain,
whom he immediately recognized--though he had seen him but once
before--as Mr. Brindlock. This person met him very kindly, and with a
hearty shake of the hand, "hoped he would do his Aunt Mabel the honor of
coming to stay with them."

There was an air of irony in this speech which Reuben was quick to
perceive; and the knowing look of Captain Saul at once informed him that
all the romance of his runaway voyage was at an end. Both Mr. and Mrs.
Brindlock received him at their home with the utmost kindness, and were
vastly entertained by his story of the dismal life upon Bolton Hill, the
pursuit of the parson with his white-faced nag, and the subsequent
cruise in the sloop Princess. Mrs. Brindlock, a good-natured,
self-indulgent woman, was greatly taken with the unaffected country
naturalness of the lad, and was agreeably surprised at his very
presentable appearance: for Reuben at this date--he may have been
thirteen or fourteen--was of good height for his years, with a profusion
of light, wavy hair, a thoughtful, blue eye, and a lurking humor about
the lip which told of a great faculty for mischief. There was such an
absence, moreover, in this city home, of that stiffness with which his
Aunt Eliza had such a marvellous capacity for investing everything about
her, that the lad found himself at once strangely at his ease. Was it,
perhaps, (the thought flashed upon him,) because it was a godless home?
The spinster aunt had sometimes expressed a fear of this sort, whenever
stories of the Brindlock wealth had reached them. Howbeit, he was on
most familiar footing with both master and mistress before two days had
gone by.

"Aunt Mabel," he had said, "I suppose you'll be writing to the old
gentleman, and do please take my part. I can't go back to that
abominable Brummem; if I do, I shall only run aw