few months, Tom and he were once more walking together, arm in arm,
recalling other days, and--arguing.

Lizette and Louisa drew together like two magnets, the instant they met.
But the best of it was, Tom had brought home Larry O'Neil as his
butler, and Mrs Kate O'Neil as his cook while Nelly became his wife's
maid.

Larry, it seems, had not taken kindly to farming in California, the more
so that he pitched unluckily on an unproductive piece of land, which
speedily swallowed up his little fortune, and refused to yield any
return. Larry, therefore, like some men who thought themselves much
wiser fellows, pronounced the country a wretched one, in reference to
agriculture, and returned to San Francisco, where he found Tom Collins,
prospering and ready to employ himself and his family.

As butler to an English squire, Larry O'Neil was, according to his own
statement, "a continted man." May he long remain so!

Nelly Morgan soon became, out of sight, the sweetest girl in the
countryside, and, ere long, one of the best young fellows in the
district carried her off triumphantly, and placed her at the head of
affairs in his own cottage. We say he was one of the best young
fellows--this husband of Nelly's--but he was by no means the handsomest;
many a handsome strapping youth there failed to obtain so good a wife as
Nelly. Her husband was a steady, hard working, thriving, good man--and
quite good-looking enough for her--so Nelly said.

As for Captain Bunting and Bill Jones, they stuck to each other to the
last, like two limpets, and both of them stuck to the sea like fish. No
shore-going felicities could tempt these hardy sons of Neptune to
forsake their native element again. He had done it once, Bill Jones
said, "in one o' the splendidest countries goin', where gold was to be
had for the pickin' up, and all sorts o' agues and rheumatizes for
nothin'; but w'en things didn't somehow go all square, an' the anchor
got foul with a gale o' adwerse circumstances springin' up astarn, why,
wot then?--go to sea again, of coorse, an' stick to it; them wos _his_
sentiments." As these were also Captain Bunting's sentiments, they
naturally took to the same boat for life.

But, although Captain Bunting and Bill did not live on shore, they
occasionally, at long intervals, condescended to revisit the terrestrial
globe, and, at such seasons of weakness, made a point of running down to
Brixley Hall to see Ned and Tom. Then, indeed,