"He is an honest and worthy gentleman, and will stand your friend if you need one. Meantime do you keep this matter to yourself for the present. I should like, as I said, to have you with me, but I must make one more voyage before I give up the old ship I have sailed in so long, and besides it would not be fair to Sir Julius Leighton to deprive his daughter of her companion." "Do you know Sir Julius, sir?" I ventured to ask. "Oh yes, I know him," answered Captain Corbet, with a peculiar accent, which did not escape me. "He is a kind-hearted man in the main, but easily swayed—easily swayed. He was wholly in the hands of his late wife, and it was well for him that she was in the main a good woman. You owe him all duty. But should you need a friend, you can safely apply to Mr. Carey, in whose hands are placed all my small means." This conversation brought us home to Mrs. Thorpe's door, where we parted for the time. Amabel was not in our room, and I was not sorry to have a few minutes to myself wherein to compose my spirits, which had been considerably shaken by all the events of the morning. It was a wonderful thing to me that I should be an heiress in ever so small a way, and, of course the prospect was a pleasant one. It set me to thinking what had become of my father's little property in Northumberland, a question which had never occurred to me before, and I determined to find out on the first opportunity. Mr. Thorpe had said he should call in the evening to say good-bye to his aunt, so I did not look upon our parting as final, though it proved to be so in the end. I was not quite sure I had been right in exchanging keepsakes with him, but I instinctively put off the consideration of that subject for the present. After a time, looking out of the window, I saw Amabel and Mr. Cheriton in deep conversation over the church-yard wall, just where a neat plain stone had been put up to Mrs. Edwards and her babe. Mr. Cheriton was bare-headed, and seemed very earnest about something. Amabel was looking straight before her, and, though her color was deeper than usual, she did not seem displeased. They parted at last, and Amabel came into the house. She started at seeing me as though I had been a ghost. "I did not know you had come in," said she. "I have been here some time," I answered. "See what I have for you!" And I displayed the pretty watch like my own which my uncle had purchased for me. "What were you and Mr. Cheriton talking about so earnestly?" I asked, after Amabel had admired her present sufficiently. "You seemed very deeply absorbed, I thought." Amabel blushed and looked down a moment. Then she raised her clear shining eyes to me. "I suppose I had better tell you, though it may never come to any thing," said she. Then after another little pause in which I guessed well enough what was coming—"Mr. Cheriton asked me whether it would be agreeable to me, if he asked my father's permission to pay his addresses to me."