When I, in my turn, came to hear of what had happened during my long absence, I found that after two years had passed my uncle began to be very restless, and when the third was gone without bringing any news of us, he was much perturbed, and made many visits to London to ask if we had been spoken by any vessel, and to see the captains of outgoing ships and beg them to make what search they could. At the end of the fourth year he gave us up for lost, and was in such terrible distress of mind that he fell ill, and was a long time of recovering. When he did get about again he collected all his books about the sea, and the voyages of navigators and discoverers, of which he had a great many, and burnt them every one, and never in all his life looked into any book of the sort again, but took to poetry instead. His business had thriven amazingly, and he led me into his private room one day and showed me a book in which he had entered, quarter by quarter, the sums of money he had put away for me in case I should ever come back. I had not been home a week when he drew out a deed of partnership, on such generous terms that by the time I was thirty I was what the country folk call a very warm man. He presented Billy immediately with fifty pounds, and learning from him that he wished to remain with me, he said the best thing he could do was to learn the pottery trade, which Billy accordingly did, and he is now the manager of our factory. We had not been at home above six months when Billy came to me one evening, and said that he was a good deal bothered in his mind. I asked him what was the matter, and he asked me back whether I thought there was anything unlucky in names. When I told him that I did not think so, and he still seemed troubled, I said he had better make a clean breast of it, whereupon he said: "It's that little girl again, sir." "Clums's girl?" I said. "No, sir, it's Elizabeth Jane." "You have found her, then?" I said. "It's not _her_," says he; "it's them," looking very gloomy.