“We were going down the Rhone—we were saved! We endured a great deal getting to Toulon, Jean Plessis’ native town, and the house he put us in there was his own; for his father, at one time, was very well off. You know all the rest, dear William; and now do you really think it possible my brother might have been saved? Surely Jean Plessis would have heard of him.” “No, my dear Mabel, perhaps not; because your brother might have still remained in prison, or have been forced to join the Republican army as a soldier, like hundreds of others.” “Oh!” exclaimed Mabel, with enthusiasm, “what happiness would be in store for mamma, if Julian lives.” “Do you remember the Duke, your stepfather, well?” questioned our hero. “Yes; though for more than two years before his death he was absent from the château.” “And what kind of a man was the Duke, Mabel?” “Oh, a grand, tall gentleman, with such a kind, gentle look; but he was quite grey—oh, much older than mamma; he looked more like her father than her husband, and he was so kind to Julian and myself; I loved him as well as if he had been my own father. “Won’t you, William, be rejoiced to see your father and mother, when we get to England?” asked Mabel, fixing her expressive eyes on the midshipman, who, for an instant, looked sad. Mabel saw the change in his handsome features at once, and, taking his hand in hers, said, softly—— “I fear I have asked a question that pains you; like me, perhaps, you have lost a parent?” “I never had the blessing of seeing, to my remembrance, either father or mother,” returned William Thornton. “I was picked up at sea, in a boat, by the crew of a French frigate called the Surveillante.” “What name did you mention, Master Thornton?” interrupted Madame Volney, who had approached the two young people unobserved; “I thought you mentioned a vessel I remember well.” “I was telling Mabel, madame,” replied the midshipman “that I was picked up in a boat, when a child of perhaps two years old, by the crew of the Surveillante frigate. The vessel that my unfortunate parents were in, it is conjectured, had been run down in a gale by that vessel.” “Mon Dieu! how strange and extraordinary,” returned Madame Volney, sitting down by the surprised young couple. “My brother was first-lieutenant of the Surveillante at that time, and often has he spoken to me, years afterwards, of that event, and of the child they picked up—the only living thing saved, as they thought. The Surveillante afterwards fought the English frigate the Quebec; and so greatly was the Surveillante injured, that she went ashore on a reef off Isle Dieu.” A breeze of wind suddenly springing up, and taking them aback, put a stop to the conversation becoming so interesting to our hero; but Madame Volney said, as our hero proceeded to fulfil some duty, “We will talk of this again, Master Thornton, for I have something to say that may interest you.” CHAPTER X.