“I have ascertained, after some difficulty, that Lady de Bracy and her child embarked, with their attendants, in the Spitfire gun brig, to proceed to Plymouth, with the intention of going out to India in the Penelope frigate. But neither the brig, nor any human being belonging to her, was ever seen or heard of from the time she left Bantry. Now, by comparing dates, there appears to me no question in the world but that the Spitfire brig was the vessel run down by the French ship the Surveillante, and that you are the child saved in the long boat, jolly-boat, or whatever name you sailors give to those affairs. It would be amazingly satisfactory if we had that Lieutenant Volney’s written statement, and the picture; but as that is out of the question, I fear, we can only state facts as they are to Sir Oscar, when he arrives in England, and, no doubt, your likeness to him or your poor mother, or the proofs we can show, with old Thornton’s statement, added to Madame Volney’s, will be quite sufficient to convince your father. Nature will do something.” Such was the substance of the information our hero received. He had only to remain patient, till time, which reconciles most things, should bring him and his father together. He, accordingly, shortly after, proceeded to Plymouth, and joined the Diamond, and, after three years’ more service, he, as we said, passed his examination, and became third Lieutenant of the Diamond, and proceeded to cruise off Brest. The last letters he had received were from Mr. Stanmore, stating that Sir Oscar had stopped, from ill-health, at the Cape; no tidings had been heard of the Duchess, and that Mabel Arden had grown into a lovely girl; that Sir Godfrey Etherton was dangerously ill, and that young Howard Etherton had quitted the service and returned home. “Now, my lad,” said his friend, Lieutenant O’Loughlin, “what do you say to that? Your little Mabel, whom you had the impudence to call plain, with eyes like a gazelle! Now, you see, she has turned out, what I always prophesied, a lovely girl. I am astonished at you! What’s beauty! Faith, now I recollect, you were half in love with that——” “Come, come, O’Loughlin,” interrupted our hero, laughing, “do not think to have it all your own way. Perhaps if I were to give Agatha Volney a little sketch of a certain——” “I cry quits,” said the Lieutenant, with a smile; “but, by the way, Agatha’s sister is going to be married shortly to young Lord Stinthorp—a splendid match. Madame Volney, fortunately, has been left a very handsome legacy by a relation who died out at Cuba, which places her in a position she is entitled to fill.” “I rejoice to hear it, old friend. Where did you get all this intelligence?” “In letters brought out by the Etna gun-boat. We go out to the Mediterranean before we return to England, so that it may be some time before we receive news again.”