“Yes, ma’am,” he returned. “I giv the promise to Em’ly, afore I come away. You see, I doen’t grow younger as the years comes round, and if I hadn’t sailed as ’twas, most like I shouldn’t never have done ’t. And it’s allus been on my mind, as I must come and see Mas’r Davy and your own sweet blooming self, in your wedded happiness, afore I got to be too old.”

He looked at us, as if he could never feast his eyes on us sufficiently. Agnes laughingly put back some scattered locks of his grey hair, that he might see us better.

“And now tell us,” said I, “everything relating to your fortunes.”