MY DEAR BOY,—I regret to inform you that in all probability you are not my son. Your mother, I am grieved to say, was a highly improper person. Who your father may be, I really cannot say, but perhaps the Honorable Henry Boltrope, Captain R. N., may be able to inform you. Circumstances over which I have no control have deferred this important disclosure. YOUR STRICKEN PARENT. And so Captain Boltrope was my father. Heavens! Was it a dream? I recalled his stern manner, his observant eye, his ill-concealed uneasiness when in my presence. I longed to embrace him. Staggering to my feet, I rushed in my scanty apparel to the deck, where Captain Boltrope was just then engaged in receiving the Governor’s wife and daughter. The ladies shrieked; the youngest, a beautiful girl, blushed deeply. Heeding them not, I sank at his feet, and, embracing them, cried,— “My father!” “Chuck him overboard!” roared Captain Boltrope. “Stay,” pleaded the soft voice of Clara Maitland, the Governor’s daughter. “Shave his head! he’s a wretched lunatic!” continued Captain Boltrope, while his voice trembled with excitement. “No, let me nurse and take care of him,” said the lovely girl, blushing as she spoke. “Mamma, can’t we take him home?” The daughter’s pleading was not without effect. In the meantime I had fainted. When I recovered my senses I found myself in Governor Maitland’s mansion. CHAPTER VII The reader will guess what followed. I fell deeply in love with Clara Maitland, to whom I confided the secret of my birth. The generous girl asserted that she had detected the superiority of my manner at once. We plighted our troth, and resolved to wait upon events. Briggs called to see me a few days afterward. He said that the purser had insulted the whole cockpit, and all the midshipmen had called him out. But he added thoughtfully: “I don’t see how we can arrange the duel. You see there are six of us to fight him.” “Very easily,” I replied. “Let your fellows all stand in a row, and take his fire; that, you see, gives him six chances to one, and he must be a bad shot if he can’t hit one of you; while, on the other hand, you see, he gets a volley from you six, and one of you’ll be certain to fetch him.” “Exactly;” and away Briggs went, but soon returned to say that the purser had declined,—“like a d—d coward,” he added. But the news of the sudden and serious illness of Captain Boltrope put off the duel. I hastened to his bedside, but too late,—an hour previous he had given up the ghost. I resolved to return to England. I made known the secret of my birth, and exhibited my adopted father’s letter to Lady Maitland, who at once suggested my marriage with her daughter, before I returned to claim the property. We were married, and took our departure next day. I made no delay in posting at once, in company with my wife and my friend Briggs, to my native village. Judge of my horror and surprise when my late adopted father came out of his shop to welcome me.