It was about half-past nine in the morning, and Mrs Trevor, with Fanny, was starting to visit some of her poor neighbours, an occupation full of holy pleasure to her kind heart, and in which she had found more than usual consolation during the heavy trials which she had recently suffered; for she had loved Eric and Vernon as a mother does her own children, and now Vernon, the little cherished jewel of her heart, was dead--Vernon was dead, and Eric, she feared not dead but worse than dead, guilty, stained, dishonoured. Often had she thought to herself, in deep anguish of heart, "Our darling little Vernon dead--and Eric fallen and ruined!" "Look at that poor fellow asleep on the grass," said Fanny, pointing to a sailor boy, who lay coiled up on the bank beside the gate. "He has had a rough bed, mother, if he has spent the night there, as I fear." Mrs Trevor had grasped her arm. "What is Flo doing?" she said, stopping, as the pretty little spaniel trotted up to the boy's reclining figure, and began snuffing about it, and then broke into a quick short bark of pleasure, and fawned and frisked about him, and leapt upon him, joyously wagging his tail. The boy rose with the dew wet from the flowers upon his hair;--he saw the dog, and at once began playfully to fondle it, and hold its little silken head between his hands; but as yet he had not caught sight of the Trevors. "It is--O good heavens it is Eric," cried Mrs Trevor, as she flew towards him. Another moment and he was in her arms, silent, speechless, with long arrears of pent-up emotion. "Oh, my Eric, our poor, lost, wandering Eric--come home; you are forgiven, more than forgiven, my own darling boy. Yes, I knew that my prayers would be answered; this is as though we received you from the dead." And the noble lady wept upon his neck, and Eric, his heart shaken with accumulated feelings, clung to her and wept. Deeply did that loving household rejoice to receive back their lost child. At once they procured him a proper dress and a warm bath, and tended him with every gentle office of female ministering hands. And in the evening, when he told them his story in a broken voice of penitence and remorse, their love came to him like a sweet balsam, and he rested by them, "seated, and clothed, and in his right mind." The pretty little room, fragrant with sweet flowers from the greenhouse, was decorated with all the refinement of womanly taste, and its glass doors opened on the pleasant garden. It was long, long since Eric had seen anything like it, and he had never hoped to see it again. "Oh, dearest aunty," he murmured, as he rested his weary head upon her lap, while he sat on a low stool at her feet, "O aunty, you will never know how different this is from the foul horrible hold of the _Stormy Petrel_, and its detestable inmates."