"Why should I be sorry, my child?"
"And you will let me do as I wish?"
"What do you mean?" asked she, anxiously.
"My sister, I shall be a sailor——!"
"And leave me?" cried the young girl, clasping her brother's hand.
EULOGY AND THRENODY.
"Yes, sister, I shall be a sailor, like my father, and like Captain John. Mary, my dear Mary, he has not lost all hope! You will have, like me, confidence in his devotion. He has promised that he will make me a thorough and efficient sailor, and we shall seek our father together. Say that you are willing, sister. What our father would have done for us it is our duty, or mine at least, to do for him. My life has but one object, to which it is wholly devoted,—to search always for him who would never have abandoned either of us. Dear Mary, how good our father was!"
"And so noble, so generous!" added Mary. "Do you know, Robert, that he was already one of the glories of our country, and would have ranked among its great men if fate had not arrested his course?"
"How well I know it!" answered Robert.