“MY DEAR SISTER,—I cannot describe to you what were my feelings on receiving your letter, which communicated to me the tidings that you also had been forced to flee from our father’s house. It is perhaps sinful in me to do so, but I cannot avoid hating the woman whom our father would have us to call mother; not on account of her conduct to me (though it was cruel enough), for I always despised her—but, O Jacobini! it was because she was so unlike _our_ mother, whom I remember better than you can, and whom I suppose you will now resemble as she lives in my memory—for all who saw you said, you ‘were her picture;’ but it is because of her cruelty to you that I hate her. The thought that you have been compelled to fly more than three hundred miles from our father’s house, and that your only hope is becoming the servant of our equals! Sister, when I received your letter and read this, it cost me a sleepless night; I cried like a child—and sailors do not shed tears for trifles. Yea, though I am no Catholic, I prayed that _our_ mother’s spirit might watch over you and protect you, my sister! But I cannot endure the thought of your being a menial in the house of any one. With this, therefore, you will receive a draft for £100 upon the agents of my owners, payable at sight. The moment that you get it cashed, leave service, or I shall be angry. “But now, my own sister, I have something else to tell you of. You know that our dear mother had a brother called James, and after whom you were named. He went to sea when but a boy, and was not again heard of. It was rumoured, and believed, that he and his shipmates were taken by pirates, and that they became a part of them. The story was not true. Eighteen months ago, I was in Bengal, and had dealings with a merchant, who, hearing the Scottish or rather the Border accent on my tongue, asked me from whence I came. I informed him; and he then, with a degree of curiosity, inquired who was my father, who my mother. When I spoke of our father—‘I remember him well,’ he said; ‘Wat Kerr—why, he was my school and class-fellow!’ But when I told him of our mother, and who she was, there was a visible paleness on his sun-burnt face; sweat stood in drops upon his brow, he gasped in his eagerness to hear me, and exclaimed—‘Youth! youth! does your mother live?’ ‘Oh, no!’ I answered; and the tears gushed into my eyes, sister. ‘Come to me! come to me! my sister’s child!’ he cried, and he threw his arms around my neck. Jacobini, it was our uncle—our mother’s brother. And when I had told him all, and how and why I had left the house, and spoke of you, and of your being named after him—‘If I live,’ said he, ‘for two years more, I shall see my little niece, my namesake—she shall be my daughter.’ He had been many years a prisoner, and on obtaining his liberty became a sort of secretary to a nabob in India. He had written repeatedly to his parents; but he received no answer, for ere then they were dead; and his