walked home, if we did not require their assistance at present, there was no saying but that we eventually might; and if so, that Sir Hercules and Lady Hawkingtrefylyan could not well refuse to perform their promises. I must say that this was the first instance in my recollection in which my parents appeared to draw amicably together; and I believe that nothing except regard for their children could have produced the effect. CHAPTER TWENTY ONE. A MOST IMPORTANT PRESENT IS MADE TO ME; AND, AS IT WILL EVENTUALLY APPEAR, THE GENEROSITY OF THE GIVER IS REWARDED. Sir Hercules and Lady Hawkingtrefylyan quitted Greenwich the day after the interview narrated in the preceding chapter, and by that day's post Anderson received a letter in reply to the one he had written from his friend Philip Bramble, channel and river pilot, who had, as he said in his letter, put on shore at Deal, where he resided but the day before, after knocking about in the Channel for three weeks. Bramble stated his willingness to receive and take charge of me, desiring that I would hold myself in readiness to be picked up at a minute's warning, and he would call for me the first time that he took a vessel up the river. A letter communicating this intelligence was forthwith dispatched by my mother to Sir Hercules, who sent a short reply, stating that if I conducted myself properly he would not lose sight of me. This letter, however, very much increased the family consequence in Fisher's Alley, for my mother did not fail to show it to everybody, and everybody was anxious to see the handwriting of a real baronet. About a week afterwards I went to the shop of the widow St. Felix to purchase some tobacco for my father, when she said to me, "So Jack--or Tom--as I hear you request to be called now--you are going to leave us!" "Yes," replied I, "and I shall be sorry to leave you, you have been so kind to me." "A little kindness goes a great way with some people, Tom, and that's the case with you, for you've a grateful heart. You're to be a pilot, I hear; well, Tom, I've a present to make you, which you will find very useful in your profession, and which will make you think of me sometimes. Stop a moment till I come down again." The widow went upstairs, and when she came down held in her hand a telescope, or spy-glass, as sailors generally call them. It was about two feet long, covered with white leather, and apparently had been well preserved. "Now, Tom, this is what a pilot ought not to be without, and if what was said by the person to whom it belonged is true, it is an excellent spy-glass; so now accept it from your loving friend, and long may you live to peep through it." "Thank you, thank you," replied I, delighted, as Mrs St. Felix put it into my hands. I surveyed it all over, pulled out the tube, and then said to her, "Who did it belong to?"