was desperately in love, and he talked about giving up the service as soon as he arrived at Malta. It is astonishing what sacrifices midshipmen will make for the objects of their adoration.

It was not until late in the evening that our adventurers arrived at Palermo. As soon as they were lodged at the hotel, Gascoigne sat down and wrote a letter in their joint names to Don Rebiera, returning him many thanks for his great kindness, informing him of their safe arrival, and trusting that they should soon meet again; and Jack took up his pen, and indited a letter in Spanish to Agnes, in which he swore that neither tide nor time, nor water, nor air, nor heaven, nor earth, nor the first-lieutenant, nor his father, nor absence, nor death itself, should prevent him from coming back and marrying her, the first convenient opportunity, begging her to refuse a thousand offers, as come back he would, although there was no saying when. It was a perfect love letter—that is to say, it was the essence of nonsense, but that made it perfect, for the greater the love the greater the folly.

These letters were consigned to the man who was sent as their guide, and also had to return with the mules. He was liberally rewarded; and as Jack told him to be very careful of his letter, the Italian naturally concluded that it was to be delivered clandestinely, and he delivered it accordingly, at a time when Agnes was walking in the garden thinking of our hero. Nothing was more opportune than the arrival of the letter;

Agnes ran to the pavilion, read it over twenty times, kissed it twenty times, and hid it in her bosom; sat for a few minutes in deep and placid thought, took the letter out of its receptacle, and read it over and over again. It was very bad Spanish and very absurd, but she thought it delightful, poetical, classical, sentimental, argumentative, convincing, incontrovertible, imaginative, and even grammatical, for if it was not good Spanish, there was no Spanish half so good. Alas! Agnes was, indeed, unsophisticated, to be in such ecstasies with a midshipman’s love-letter. Once more she hastened to her room to weep, but it was from excess of joy and delight. The reader may think Agnes silly, but he must take into consideration the climate, and that she was not yet fifteen.

Our young gentlemen sent for a tailor and each ordered a new suit of clothes; they delivered their letters of recommendation, and went to the banker to whom they were addressed by Don Rebiera.

“I shall draw for ten pounds, Jack,” said Gascoigne, “on the strength of the shipwreck; I shall tell the truth, all except that we forgot to ask for leave, which I shall leave out; and I am sure the story will be worth ten pounds. What shall you draw for, Jack?”

“I shall draw for two hundred pounds,” replied Jack. “I mean to have a good cruise while I can.”

“But will your governor stand that, Easy?”

“To be sure he will.”

“Then you’re right—he is a philosopher—I wish he’d teach mine, for he hates the sight of a bill.”

“Then don’t you draw, Ned—I have plenty for both. If every man had his equal share and rights in the world, you would be as able to draw as much as I; and as you cannot, upon the principles of equality, you shall have half.”

“I really shall become a convert to your philosophy, Jack; it does not appear to be so nonsensical as I thought it. At all events it has saved my old governor ten pounds, which he can ill afford, as a colonel on half-pay.”

On their return to the inn, they found Don Philip and Don Martin, to whom Don Rebiera had written, who welcomed them with open arms. They were two very fine young men of eighteen and nineteen, who were finishing their education in the army. Jack asked them to dinner, and they and our hero soon became inseparable. They took him to all the theatres, the conversaziones of all the nobility, and, as