The leave-taking between Joshua and his parents was of a very different nature from the last, when he was leaving home for the first time in his life. Then Mr. and Mrs. Marvel were beset with doubts as to whether the step Joshua was about to take was for the best. Now, these doubts were dissolved. He had gone on his venture a bright happy boy, and had returned a bright happy man. He had started on the lowest round of the ladder, and had already mounted many steps. Third mate already! What might he not attain to? They were proud of him, and with just cause. All the neighbors were proud of him, too; he was a prince among them. The family were quite a distinguished family in the neighborhood, as having for their representative a young man who had been all over the world--a man who had not only seen the sea, but who had been on it. A little crowd of neighbors had gathered about the house to give Joshua a parting handshake. The information of their having gathered for that purpose was imparted to Joshua by his father with an air of pride. "I've lived in this neighborhood for nearly fifty years, Josh," said George Marvel, "and I've never but once seen so many of the neighbors on the lookout at one time." "When was that, father?" asked Joshua, humoring his father's vanity. "That was when a carriage with two white horses came through the street, and stopped in it for full five minutes. It was the first carriage that ever was seen here, and the last, for that matter. You remember, mother! "Yes, George." "I wish you could have stopped with us until the last minute, Josh," continued George Marvel; "but Mr. Meddler was so mightily anxious that you should spend tonight and to-morrow with him at Gravesend, that he couldn't well be refused, being so good a friend. Do you think your ship will sail to-morrow?" "To-morrow or next day, daddy." And Joshua put his arm round his mother's neck, and she looked up at her big son with affectionate pride. "In three or four months you'll be among the savages again," observed George Marvel contemplatively and admiringly. "I shall see plenty of them, I dare say, father. They come down to Sydney from what the people call the interior." "And they are black all over, eh, Josh?" asked George Marvel, who was never tired of a repetition of Joshua's adventures. "A kind of brown-black rather," answered Joshua, "with eyes like pieces of lighted coal." "And not a bit of clothing?" "An old blanket, some of them; nothing at all, a good many. A sailor gave one a pair of trousers, and the fellow tied them round his neck by the legs." "D'ye see what strange things there are in the world, mother, that we never knew of?" observed George Marvel to his wife. "That comes of being a wood-turner all one's life.--Josh, if you have children, don't make wood-turners of 'em." "I won't, father," said Joshua, laughing; "but I'm not certain either that I'd make sailors of them."