“Ah, well, after Lil repulsed and fled from him, and shunned him altogether as if he had been the horned and hoofed demon himself, he grew desperate and went off to sea.
“Being fairly well educated, and having permission to refer to his college masters, he got a good berth from the first, as captain’s clerk in an East India merchantman.
“For some months all went well enough, and Joe ‘won golden opinions from all sorts of’ officers and men. But being a wild, reckless, impulsive, rollicking sort of a little devil, he soon began to get into all manner of troubles, though he always contrived to get out of them again, falling like a cat on his feet.
“During all this time he kept up an irregular correspondence with his cousin Joseph, freely confessing all his peccadilloes, but stipulating that no one was to tell Lil.
“After a three years’ voyage all around the world, Joe came home, and went straight to the dear old cottage at Stockton.
“He found the house and garden enlarged and improved in proportion to Joseph Wyvil’s increased prosperity.
“Joe was now a sun-burned sailor boy of eighteen, much darker and very much more of a dare-devil than ever.
“Lil was sixteen, and more beautiful than before. She was still the idol of her brother, for whom she kept house, and who—for his dear sister’s sake, as it was said—remained unmarried and unengaged.
“The brother and sister received their sailor cousin with all their old confiding affection. Lil had forgiven his presumption and forgotten her fears of him.
“But, ah! poor Joe! His passion for this ‘fair one with golden locks’ was rekindled into such a fierce flame that nothing on earth seemed strong enough to resist it.