, which was very dutiful on her part.
She was rewarded by finding herself a widow with a large fortune.
Having married the first time to please her parents, she intends now to
marry to please herself; but she is very young, and is in no hurry.

That young lady with such a sweet expression of countenance is the Hon.
Miss Cecilia Ossulton. She is lively, witty, and has no fear in her
composition; but she is very young yet, not more than seventeen--and
nobody knows what she really is--she does not know herself. These are
the parties who meet in the cabin of the yacht. The crew consist of ten
fine seamen, the steward and the cook. There is also Lord B---'s valet,
Mr Ossulton's gentleman, and the lady's-maid of Miss Ossulton. There
not being accommodation for them, the other servants have been left on
shore.

The yacht is now under way, and her sails are all set. She is running
between Drake's Island and the main. Dinner has been announced. As the
reader has learnt something about the preparations, I leave him to judge
whether it be not very pleasant to sit down to dinner in a yacht. The
air has given everybody an appetite; and it was not until the cloth was
removed that the conversation became general.

"Mr Seagrove," said his lordship, "you very nearly lost your passage; I
expected you last Thursday."

"I am sorry, my lord, that business prevented my sooner attending to
your lordship's kind summons."

"Come, Seagrove, don't be nonsensical," said Hautaine; "you told me
yourself, the other evening, when you were talkative, that you had never
had a brief in your life."

"And a very fortunate circumstance," replied Seagrove; "for if I had had
a brief I should not have known what to have done with it. It is not my
fault; I am fit for nothing but a commissioner. But still I had
business, and very important business, too. I was summoned by Ponsonby
to go with him to Tattersall's, to give my opinion about a horse he
wishes to purchase, and then to attend him to Forest Wild to plead his
cause with his uncle."

"It appears, then, that you were retained," replied Lord B---; "may I
ask you whether your friend gained his cause?"

"No, my lord, he lost his cause, but he gained a suit."

"Expound your riddle, sir," said Cecilia Ossulton.

"The fact is, that old Ponsonby is very anxious that William should
marry Miss Percival, whose estates join on to Forest Wild. Now, my
friend William is about as fond of marriag