These words led to an explanation which told the two strangers that their concerns were more nearly allied than they had been aware. Our readers of course need not be informed that the elder of the two was Mr Primrose, and the younger Mr Robert Darnley. They were happy, however, in the midst of their sorrows, to have become thus acquainted at a distance from home. They only regretted that the distance between their respective situations in India had formed an insuperable barrier against an acquaintance and intimacy there. The fact is that, so long as Dr Greendale considered the return of Mr Primrose as a matter of uncertainty, he had been very cautious of exciting his daughter’s expectations. He had ventured to consider his own approbation quite sufficient to allow of the correspondence between his niece and Mr Robert Darnley, and had in his letters to Mr Primrose simply mentioned the fact without stating particulars, thinking that it would be time enough hereafter, should the mutual affection of the young persons for each other continue and strengthen. Mr Primrose had, in reply to that information, left Dr Greendale quite at liberty to make such disposal of Penelope as he might think proper; for the father was well aware that the uncle was, both by discretion and affection, well qualified for the guardianship of his child. The vessels in which the two gentlemen sailed soon weighed anchor and put to sea again. So the friends were parted for a time; nor did they hold any farther communication on the course of their voyage, for they had not left St Helena many days before the ship parted company in a gale of wind. That vessel in which Mr Primrose sailed first arrived in England, as we have already intimated. CHAPTER XIV.