If Joseph Duncombe doted on this bright-haired, blue-eyed daughter, his love was not unrecompensed. Rosamond idolized her father, whom she believed to be the best and noblest of created beings. Rosamond's remembrance of her mother was but shadowy. She had lost that tender protector at a very early age. Within the last year and a half her father had retired from active service, after selling his vessel, the "Vixen," for a large price, so goodly a name had she borne in the merchant service. This retirement of Captain Duncombe's was a sacrifice which he made for his beloved daughter. For himself, the life of a seaman had lost none of its attractions. But when he saw his fair young daughter of an age to leave school, he determined that she should have a home. He had made a very comfortable little fortune during five-and-thirty years of hard service. But he had never made a sixpence the earning of which he need blush to remember. He was known in the service as a model of truth and honesty. Driving about the eastern suburbs of London, he happened one day to pass that dreary plot of waste ground on which the miser's tumble-down dwelling had been built. It was a pleasant day in April, and the place was looking less dreary than usual. The spring sunshine lit up the broad river, and the rigging of the ships stood out in sharp black lines against a bright blue sky. A board against the dilapidated palings announced that the ground was to be sold. Captain Duncombe drew up his horse suddenly. "That's the place for me!" he exclaimed; "close by the old river, whose tide carried me down to the sea on my first voyage five-and-thirty years ago--within view of the Pool, and all the brave old ships lying at anchor. That's the place for me! I'll sweep away that old ramshackle hovel, and build a smart water-tight little cottage for my pet and me to live in; and I'll stick the Union Jack on a main-top over our heads, and at night, when I lie awake and hear the water rippling by, I shall fancy I'm still at sea." A landsman would most likely have stopped to consider that the neighbourhood was lonely, the ground damp and marshy, the approach to this solitary cross-road through the most disreputable part of London. Captain Duncombe considered nothing, except two facts--first the river, then the view of the ships in the Pool. He drove back to Wapping, where he found the house-agent who was commissioned to sell old Screwton's dwelling. That gentleman was only too glad to get a customer for a place which no one seemed inclined to have on any terms. He named his price. The merchant-captain did not attempt to make a bargain; but agreed to buy the place, and to give ready money for it, as soon as the necessary deeds were drawn up and signed. In a week this was done, and the captain found himself possessor of a snug little freehold on the banks of the Thames.