ood on both sides, without being very
brilliantly connected, or rich. On the contrary, early left an orphan,
fatherless and motherless, as was the case with Mary Pratt, he had been
taken from a country academy when only fifteen, and sent to sea, that he
might make his own way in the world. Hitherto, his success had not been of
a very flattering character. He had risen, notwithstanding, to be the
chief mate of a whaler, and bore an excellent reputation among the people
of Suffolk. Had it only been a year or two later, when speculation took
hold of the whaling business in a larger way, he would not have had the
least difficulty in obtaining a ship. As it was, however, great was his
delight when Deacon Pratt engaged him as master of the new schooner, which
had been already named the "Sea Lion"--or "Sea Lyon," as Roswell sometimes
affected to spell the word, in honour of his old progenitor, the engineer.

Mary Pratt had noted all these proceedings, partly with pain, partly with
pleasure, but always with great interest. It pained her to find her uncle,
in the decline of life, engaging in a business about which he knew
nothing. It pained her, still more, to see one whom she loved from habit,
if not from moral sympathies, wasting the few hours that remained for
preparing for the last great change, in attempts to increase possessions
that were already much more than sufficient for his wants. This
consideration, in particular, deeply grieved Mary Pratt; for she was
profoundly pious, with a conscience that was so sensitive as materially to
interfere with her happiness, as will presently be shown, while her uncle
was merely a deacon. It is one thing to be a deacon, and another to be
devoted to the love of God, and to that love of our species which we are
told is the consequence of a love of the Deity. The two are not
incompatible; neither are they identical. This Mary had been made to see,
in spite of all her wishes to be blind as respects the particular subject
from whom she had learned the unpleasant lesson. The pleasure felt by our
heroine, for such we now announce Mary Pratt to be, was derived from the
preferment bestowed on Roswell Gardiner. She had many a palpitation of the
heart when she heard of his good conduct as a seaman, as she always did
whenever she heard his professional career alluded to at all. On this
point, Roswell was without spot, as all Suffolk knew and confessed. On
Oyster Pond, he was regarded as a species of