gave up their berths to the sick; but the greater number of our
people were compelled to remain on deck, sheltered, however, by every
means the kindness of our hosts could devise. There was one fair,
blue-eyed girl--can I ever forget her? What a pure, light-hearted young
creature she was! I felt at once that I could place the same confidence
in her that I could in my own sisters, and that she was a being superior
both to me and to any of those by whom I had been lately surrounded.
Her name was Mary Dean. She was the daughter of the master of the
_Mary_, and the ship was named after her. Mr Bell told the master of
my behaviour, which he was pleased to praise, and of my refusing to quit
the ship till he did; and Mary heard the tale. The mate also told him
that I was the son of a gentleman, and how I had been treated by Captain
Swales.

Captain Dean was a very different character to Captain Swales, with
whose conduct he was so thoroughly disgusted, that he refused to hold
any further communication with him than business actually required. I
had held out till I was in safety, and a severe attack of illness then
came on. Captain Dean had me removed to a berth in his own cabin, and
Mary became my nurse. Where there is sickness and misery, there will
the ministering hand of gentle woman be found. Mary Dean watched over
me as the ship which bore us steered her course for the mouth of the
Saint Lawrence. To her gentle care, under Providence, I owed my life.
Several of the emigrants died after they came on board the _Mary_, and
such would probably have been my fate under less watchful treatment.

I was in a low fever and unconscious. How long I remained so, I
scarcely know. I awoke one afternoon, and found Mary Dean sitting by my
side working with her needle. I fancied that I was dead, and that she
was an angel watching over me. Although I discovered that the first
part of the notion was a hallucination, I was every day more convinced
of the truth of the second. When I got rather better, she used to read
to me interesting and instructive works; and every morning she read some
portion of the Bible, and explained it to me in a manner which made me
comprehend it better than I had ever done before.

Ten days thus passed rapidly away before I was able to go on deck.
Captain Dean was very kind to me, and often came and spoke to me, and
gave me much useful instruction in seamanship, and also in navigation.
I then thou