Richard was not unsocial in his habits; and soon became the husband of a fair-haired wife,--the daughter of a countryman who, like himself, had established commercial relations at Pará. In a few years after, several sweet children called him "father,"--only two of whom survived to prattle in his ears this endearing appellation, alas! no longer to be pronounced in the presence of their mother. Fifteen years after leaving the Land's End, Richard Trevannion, still under thirty-five years of age, was a widower, with two children,--respected wherever known, prosperous in pecuniary affairs,--rich enough to return home, and spend the remainder of his days in that state so much desired by the Sybarite Roman poet,--"otium cum dignitate." Did he remember the vow mutually made between him and his brother, that, having enough money, they would one day go back to Cornwall, and recover the ancestral estate? He did remember it. He longed to accomplish this design. He only awaited his brother's answer to a communication he had made to him on this very subject. He had no doubt that Ralph's desire would be in unison with his own,--that his brother would soon join him, and then both would return to their native land,--perhaps to dwell again under the same roof that had sheltered them as children. The history of the elder brother during this period of fifteen years, if less eventful, was not less distinguished by success. By steadily following the pursuit which had first attracted him to Peru, he succeeded in becoming a man of considerable means,--independent, if not wealthy. Like his brother, he got married at an early period,--in fact, within the first year after establishing himself in Cerro Pasco. Unlike the latter, however, he chose for his wife one of the women of the country,--a beautiful Peruvian lady. She too, but a short while before, had gone to a better world, leaving motherless two pretty children, of twelve and fourteen years of age,--the elder of the two being a daughter. Such was the family of Ralph Trevannion, and such the condition of life in which his brother's epistle reached him,--that epistle containing the proposal that they should wind up their respective businesses, dispose of both, and carry their gains to the land that had given them birth. The proposition was at once accepted, as Richard knew it would be. It was far from the first time that the thing had been discussed, epistolary fashion, between them; for letters were exchanged as often as opportunity permitted,--sometimes twice or thrice in the year. In these letters, during the last few years of their sojourn in South America, the promise made on leaving home was mutually mentioned, and as often renewed on either side. Richard knew that his brother was as eager as himself to keep that well-remembered vow.