Schillie.—"It is you that want reason. I tell you what, June, I had rather stay here all the days of my life, and live to be the last person on it, burying you every one, than be a week at sea with such a set of rascally, vile, audacious, drunken robbers as they were. Now if you love me let me hear their names no more. Let me enjoy the fact that I am with you all again. Let me do anything to drive away the horrors that beset me when in their power. I don't mean to say they were uncivil, or rude, or that they treated us unnecessarily roughly. I had a knife ready if they had done so to either of us."

So the subject was dropped, and, though we might have had some misgivings that we had not acted with great courage, and that we had lost an opportunity of being restored to the world which we might not have again, yet we were not worse off than we had been ten days ago. Moreover, we had escaped a great and serious misfortune, namely, being separated. Also we knew the extent of what we had suffered, and we could not tell what we might have had to endure. Also we had the heartfelt satisfaction of knowing that we were not given up as lost, that kind hearts and active energies were being employed in our behalf. Were we wrong to be so hopeful that these exertions would meet with a due reward?

These thoughts gave us food for many a conversation, though we made very few allusions to the pirates themselves. Once, indeed, on remarking a few cooking utensils, and a great big bottle that were now in use among us, and which I had never seen before, "Oh," said Gatty composedly, "they had no business to burn down our house, so Otty and I cleared their caboose while you were down in the cabin, and Jenny helped us, and she allows we have now a tidy set of cooking things, and Goodness knows they have arrived just in the nick of time as ours were done up."

Jenny.—"Indeed, Ma'am, it is quite true. Look at our old saucepans. Past mending, even if there was a tinker next door."

Schillie.—"Very sensible brat! I did not think she had such nous in her."

Mother.—"Really I think we ought to give you a vote of thanks, Gatty."

Madame.—"But surely, my dear Madam, the want of principle Gertrude has shewn ought to be reproved. It was (pray do not think me unkind) but I am afraid I can call it nothing but a theft on her part."

Hargrave (bursting into the conversation nolens volens).—"I beg pardon, ladies, but I must say Miss Gertrude has hacted in a manner surprisingly delightful. Them 'orrifying hannimals 'as destroyed 'eaps of our best dresses and millineries; and hif Miss could but 'ave tossed their best suits hoverboard my mind would be hat rest, and my 'eart heased."

So Gatty got applauded on all sides, for Madame was reminded if it had not been for her thieving propensities she would never have had the nice quantities of warm water we could now heat for her bath. Therefore she pocketed her principles at the shrine of her baths, at least to a certain extent.