It need hardly be stated that Wilfred considered the offer, so kindly and unexpectedly made, far too good a one to be refused, and next morning he accepted it with thanks. Four days afterwards, the “Flaming Comet” entered the noble harbour of New York, and after taking a cordial leave of Captain Barlow, and being cheered by the steerage passengers and crew as he went over the side, Wilfred found himself before nightfall ensconced in the comfortable Westmoreland Hotel, in Madison Square, as the friend and guest of Mr. Lomax. During their three days’ stay at New York, Wilfred managed to see most that was worth seeing in that not very interesting but cosmopolitan city, which is all length and no breadth, and which looks like a slice of the outskirts of Paris, stuck, sandwich-fashion, between two slices of the slums of Liverpool. On the fourth day, the party left New York by the cars, and in due time Wilfred found himself looking down on S. Francisco, with the blue waters of the Pacific gleaming and glinting behind it. Mr. Lomax had a charming country house near the sea upon the Gulf about twenty miles from the city, and he insisted on Wilfred’s paying him a visit of a fortnight to recruit from the fatigue of the journey. At the end of that time this excellent man tried hard to persuade his young guest to allow him to use his influence, which was considerable, to get him a situation in a mercantile house, but Wilfred’s mind had been made up from the first not to remain in the States, but to go on to China. When Mr. Lomax found that his resolution could not be shaken, he went one morning by rail to S. Francisco, and on his return told Wilfred that he had arranged with a friend who was a large shipowner to give him a free passage in a ship about to start for Hong Kong--a statement of whose veracity pious doubts may be entertained, from the circumstance that Mr. Lomax drew that day a far larger amount of dollars from his bankers than ever he brought home. The constant change of scene through which Wilfred had passed, and the genuine and disinterested kindness he had received from his hospitable hosts, had tended to raise his spirits; and so agreeable did he make himself, that the whole family, and especially the two eldest girls, were heartily grieved when the time came for his departure. “I have never inquired into your family history, Mr. Smith,” said Mr. Lomax at parting, “and I don’t mean to begin now; but let me tell you that I am sure your absence from home arises from no cause of which you need be ashamed; and don’t forget that, should you be restored to it hereafter, no one will be more glad to hear of your welfare than your friends at Lomaxville.”