He recollected very well, when he first saw the child on the deck of the Surveillante frigate, that the men said the boy’s name was Oscar. Indeed the child, when questioned, lisped some kind of word like Oscar, but that he considered an outlandish name, and was sure it was not real, but some pet term; it was not ship-shape: so he called him William, after himself. At the termination of a week, our hero returned to London, having received a letter from Lieutenant O’Loughlin, stating that he had been appointed First Lieutenant of the Diamond frigate, commanded by Sir Sidney Smith, who was very anxious to see him in London, and wished him to serve the rest of his time as midshipman with him. This was agreeable tidings to our hero; so, taking an affectionate leave of his early protector, he proceeded to London. Through Lord Hood’s interest he got appointed to the Diamond. Whilst in London he was constantly at Madame Volney’s. Mabel was at Mrs. Samson’s; no tidings of her mother having reached England had yet been received, which caused much uneasiness to the young man, as well as to his _protégée_, for he feared some untoward event had baffled Jean Plessis’s endeavours to rescue the Duchess. Mr. Stanmore was at length enabled to give our hero the result of his inquiries respecting Sir Oscar de Bracy. “It appears,” said the solicitor one day, when our hero was dining with him previous to his departure for Plymouth, where the Diamond frigate was stationed; “it appears that Sir Oscar de Bracy is the last of a very old Irish family, who settled in that country about the time of Elizabeth, having conquered by the sword a large tract of territory in the west, and the head of that family was created a baronet by James the First. “Since that period, from one cause or another, their fortunes have declined, and the property become divided, so that at present the family of de Bracy is represented only by Sir Oscar, the last male descendant of the Irish de Bracys. He had a sister, who is said to have died abroad when very young. Sir Oscar de Bracy and this sister, it seems, were left orphans, with only a small estate, near Bantry—I think about five hundred a year. The former became a commander in the navy, and, it is said, succeeded to a very large portion of the forfeited estates of the Kerry de Bracys—six or seven thousand a-year, I hear—by the death of a distant kinsman. Who he married I have not yet learned, now he is Governor of ——, in India; but is shortly expected home.