Cheroots were Mr. Waddy’s favourite smoking. Of course he had none at present, after his wreck. Was it for the want of these that, even through his feebleness of a half-drowned man, his old impatience began to manifest itself? He had fancied, perhaps, that years of absence would have changed him from the hot, ardent, passionate, confident, and confiding youth of three lustra before. Were not fifteen years enough to stoicise and epicureanise him? Could he not keep cool and take his luxurious opportunities of a wealthy idler with passive content? Why must the native air awaken again the old thoughts and the old forgotten hopes? Forgotten! Ah, Mr. Waddy! hopes touched with disappointment may blacken into despairs, and pass into the background of shadow, away from foregrounds of sunshine in the heart, but there they must abide unfading. Mr. Waddy, sitting by the seaside on The Island, was not merely impatient--an invalid may naturally be so when convalescence has made farther advance with his mind than his body--he was also very sad. He could not avoid connecting himself with the terrible disaster which had marked his coming. “Just my luck!” said he to himself. “Why must I come home without any object? As soon as I arrive on this wretched continent, my passing at a hundred yards is enough to knock one boy into the water. Then I get myself left by the steamer, and to shorten my delay, I take the _Billy Blue Nose_ and I become its Jonah. My vessel goes to wreck; my men are drowned: I am put under obligations to some romantic old maid, and then I have to make a whole family miserable with fatal news. And I am saved--for some good purpose I am willing to believe. But for what? Have I any duties besides to be a jolly bachelor and tell a boy or two, like that young Dunstan and his friend, how to behave? I believe I have not a relative in the world--save possibly that Mr. Waddie of New York--descendant, perhaps, of my Tory ancestor--who wrote me from Paris. It is rather pleasant to think of one relative, and then Dunstan told me that the old boy had an only child, a lovely daughter. Possibly she may be a cousin within the kissing removes. Ah, pleasanter still!” Mr. Waddy was growing steadily more cheerful; then he fell a long time drowsily silent--dreaming undefined dreams--gazing out across the sea to the horizon, where wavering warmth of air mingled with quivering waves. But at last a chill in the air reminded him that he was still an invalid, and that evening was at hand. “I must go in,” he said, “and get ready for my start to-morrow. Dan’l must be persuaded to cede his clothes to me.”