the poor fellow got up, and walked into the verandah, where he sobbed like a child. A-tae, the truest love in the world, the heart which once so fondly beat for him, now stilled in death—the beautiful lips which, when parted with a smile for him, seemed like an angel's; the stars which shone down upon him then, were shining upon her silent grave, and he should never see her again. All this flashed across his mind, and, sailor as he was, he wept. However, after a few moments he recovered, and crept quietly into the room, his friends pretending not to have noticed his absence. Mrs. Mackay sang several songs, and played some animated airs upon the piano, which, with a little brandy pawnee, somewhat enlivened the sailor. About eleven o'clock the dark-eyed one went home, and his hostess wishing to have a little conversation with him, begged he would not hurry his departure, as they did not generally retire until a late hour.
The young lady gone, Thompson threw off his bashfulness, and was once more the merry fellow of old, but he cautiously avoided expressing any opinion about the dark-eyed visitor.
"Do you know who she is, Mr. Thompson?"
"No, miss."
"She is our new governess of the native girls' school; and, I think, would make you an excellent wife."
"Me, miss? Me marry? No, no. I'll keep single. I ain't a marrying man."
"But she was very much interested with your song, and I noticed you were with hers. Take care, Mr. Thompson; take care."
"Bless your heart, miss, you don't know human nature as I do. Why, if every young woman that I have sung that song to, and who has cried over it, had been sentimentyle over me, I should have been prosecuted for breach of promise years ago. It's only for a moment—they feels sorry for poor Tom Bowline. He's gone aloft, they thinks, and his widder is a-crying about him—probable his half-pay note stopped, and no pension, and her little children going into the werkus. But it's soon all over, and then they are ready for another song of a similar sentimentyle specee, at which they cries, just as they would smile at a comic song, bless their little hearts all on 'em, miss."
"Thompson, you only talk like that to deceive me as to the real state of your feelings. You don't mean what you say."
"Indeed, miss, but I does. I've a lonely widowed mother at home, and I intend devoting the remainder of a rather precarious existence to her. I am going to die a bachelor, and I think it's just as well for any one in my situation."