"He was pardoned," replied my aunt, "on the representation of my father--because of the service he had rendered in saving the ship and crew at the risk of his own life." "I'm glad of that," said Sophia Jane; "because it was so very good of him to tumble down the hatchway." "He never returned to England," continued Aunt Hannah, "but settled in China, where I believe he prospered and became at last a rich man. My father often heard from him and always spoke of him with affection." "That's a very nice story, indeed," said Susan. "I'm sorry it's over." ------------------------------------------------------------------------ The account of the convicts' mutiny is taken from the Unpublished diary of Captain John Marshall, In command of the ship _Scarborough_ at the time. CHAPTER EIGHT. SHRIMPS AND GOOD-BYES. Six months had passed. Susan's visit to Ramsgate was drawing to a close, for her mother had said in her last letter that she should soon be able to fix the day of her return. Six whole months! How long, how endless they had seemed to look forward to, but how very short they were to look back on. Susan could hardly believe they were really gone. She remembered well how desolate she had felt at first, how strange everything had been to her, and how she had longed to see a familiar face; but now, though of course it would be delightful to go home, there really were some things in Ramsgate she would be sorry to leave. One of these was the sea. It had almost frightened her at first, but now she had grown to love its changing face and voice, which were scarcely ever the same for two days together. For sometimes, sparkling with smiles, it would keep up a pleasant ripple of conversation, breaking now and again into laughter. At other times, darkly frowning, it would toss itself up and down in restless vexations, and hurl its waves on the shore with hoarse exclamations of anger. You could never be sure of it for long together, and in this it was strangely like the other thing which Susan felt she should miss--Sophia Jane. She and the sea were about equal in the uncertainty of their moods, for it must not be supposed that her nature was so changed by her illness that she became at once a good and agreeable little girl. This is not easy when one has become used for a long while to be tiresome and ill-tempered, for "habit," as Mrs Winslow had said, is a "giant power." The longer we have done wrong the more difficult it is to do right. And yet in some ways she was altered; she was not quite the same Sophia Jane who had said, "I like to vex 'em," six months ago.