“Dearest Mary,” said Roswell Gardiner, in this epistle, “your uncle will tell you what has brought us into this port, and all things connected with the schooner.  I have sent home more than $4000 worth of oil, and I hope my owner will forgive the accident off Currituck, on account of this run of good luck.  In my opinion, we shall yet make a voyage, and that part of my fortune will be secure.  Would that I could feel as sure of finding you more disposed to be kind to me, on my return!  I read in your Bible every day, Mary, and I often pray to God to enlighten my mind, if my views have been wrong.  As yet, I cannot flatter myself with any change, for my old opinions appear rather to be more firmly rooted than they were before I sailed.”  Here poor Mary heaved a heavy sigh, and wiped the tears from her eyes.  She was pained to a degree she could hardly believe possible, though she did full credit to Roswell’s frankness.  Like all devout persons, her faith in the efficacy of sacred writ was strong:  and she so much the more lamented her suitor’s continued blindness, because it remained after light had shone upon it.  “Still, Mary,” the letter added, “as I have every human inducement to endeavour to be right, I shall not throw aside the book, by any means.  In that I fully believe; our difference being in what the volume teaches.  Pray for me, sweetest girl—­but I know you do, and will continue to do, as long as I am absent.”

“Yes, indeed, Roswell,” murmured Mary—­“as long as you and I live!”

“Next to this one great concern of my life, comes that which this man Daggett gives me,”—­the letter went on to say.  “I hardly know what to do under all the circumstances.  Keep in his company much longer I cannot, without violating my duty to the deacon.  Yet, it is not easy, in any sense, to get rid of him.  He has stood by me so manfully on all occasions, and seems so much disposed to make good-fellowship of the voyage, that, did it depend on myself only, I should at once make a bargain with him to seal in company, and to divide the spoils.  But this is now impossible, and I must quit him in some way or other.  He outsails me in most weathers, and it is a thing easier said than done.  What will make it more difficult is the growing shortness of the nights.  The days lengthen fast now, and as we go south they will become so much longer, that, by the time when it will be indispensable to separate, it will be nearly all day.  The thing must be done, however, and I trust to luck to be able to do it as it ought to be effected.

“And now, dearest, dearest Mary—­” But why should we lift the veil from the feelings of this young man, who concluded his letter by pouring out his whole heart in a few sincere and manly sentences.  Mary wept over them most of that day, perusing and reperusing them, until her eyes would scarce perform their proper office.