on my arrival? Would it not be best to return at once to my own country,--if only I might be allowed to do so. All this made me very melancholy, but especially the feeling that I should be regarded by all around as a monster of cruelty. I could not but think of the words which Lieutenant Crosstrees had spoken to me. The Saviour of the world had His disciples who believed in Him, and the one dear youth who loved Him so well. I almost doubted my own energy as a teacher of progress to carry me through the misery which I saw in store for me. "I shall not have a very bright time when I arrive in England," I said to my friend Crosstrees, two days before our expected arrival. "It will be all new, and there will be plenty for you to see." "You will go upon some other voyage?" "Yes; we shall be wanted up in the Baltic at once. We are very good friends with Russia; but no dog is really respected in this world unless he shows that he can bite as well as bark." "I shall not be respected, because I can neither bark nor bite. What will they do with me?" "We shall put you on shore at Plymouth, and send you up to London--with a guard of honour." "And what will the guard of honour do with me?" "Ah! for that I cannot answer. He will treat you with all kind of respect, no doubt." "It has not occurred to you to think," said I, "where he will deposit me? Why should it do so? But to me the question is one of some moment. No one there will want me; nobody knows me. They to whom I must be the cause of some little trouble will simply wish me out of the way; and the world at large, if it hears of me at all, will simply have been informed of my cruelty and malignity. I do not mean to destroy myself." "Don't do that," said the lieutenant, in a piteous tone. "But it would be best, were it not that certain scruples prevent one. What would you advise me to do with myself, to begin with?" He paused before he replied, and looked painfully into my face. "You will excuse my asking you, because, little as my acquaintance is with you, it is with you alone of all Englishmen that I have any acquaintance." "I thought that you were intent about your book." "What shall I do with my book? Who will publish it? How shall I create an interest for it? Is there one who will believe, at any rate, that I believe in the Fixed Period?" "I do," said the lieutenant. "That is because you first knew me in Britannula, and have since passed a month with me at sea. You are my one and only friend, and you are about to leave me,--and you also disbelieve in me. You must acknowledge to yourself that you have never known one whose position in the world was more piteous, or whose difficulties were more trying." Then I left him, and went down to complete my manuscript.