skly now. He walked to Hanover
Square, Mrs. Mackenzie, without hurting his ankle in the least."

"I am almost sorry that he is getting well," says Mrs. Mackenzie
sincerely. "He won't want us when he is quite cured."

"Indeed, my dear creature!" cries the Colonel, taking her pretty hand
and kissing it; "he will want you, and he shall want you. James no more
knows the world than Miss Rosey here; and if I had not been with him,
would have been perfectly unable to take care of himself. When I am gone
to India, somebody must stay with him; and--and my boy must have a home
to go to," says the kind soldier, his voice dropping. "I had been in
hopes that his own relatives would have received him more, but never
mind about that," he cried more cheerfully. "Why, I may not be absent a
year! I perhaps need not go at all--I am second for promotion. A couple
of our old generals may drop any day; and when I get my regiment I come
back to stay, to live at home. Meantime, whilst I am gone, my dear lady,
you will take care of James; and you will be kind to my boy."

"That I will!" said the widow, radiant with pleasure, and she took
one of Clive's hands and pressed it for an instant; and from Clive's
father's kind face there beamed out that benediction which always made
his countenance appear to me among the most beautiful of human faces.

CHAPTER XXIV. In which the Newcome Brothers once more meet together in
Unity

His narrative, as the judicious reader no doubt is aware, is written
maturely and at ease, long after the voyage is over, whereof it recounts
the adventures and perils; the winds adverse and favourable; the storms,
shoals, shipwrecks, islands, and so forth, which Clive Newcome met in
his early journey in life. In such a history events follow each other
without necessarily having a connection with one another. One ship
crosses another ship, and after a visit from one captain to his comrade,
they sail away each on his course. The Clive Newcome meets a vessel
which makes signals that she is short of bread and water; and after
supplying her, our captain leaves her to see her no more. One or two of
the vessels with which we commenced the voyage together, part company in
a gale, and founder miserably; others, after being wofully battered in
the tempest, make port, or are cast upon surprising islands where all
sorts of unlooked-for prosperity awaits the lucky crew. Also, no doubt,
the writer of the book, into whose hands C