The descendants of any family of two centuries standing, will, as a matter of course, be numerous.  There are exceptions, certainly; but such is the rule.  Thus is it with Lyon Gardiner, and his progeny, who are now to be numbered in scores, including persons in all classes of life, though it carries with it a stamp of caste to be known in Suffolk as having come direct from the loins of old Lyon Gardiner.  Roswell, of that name, if not of that Ilk, the island then being the sole property of David Johnson Gardiner, the predecessor and brother of its present proprietor, was allowed to have this claim, though it would exceed our genealogical knowledge to point out the precise line by which this descent was claimed.  Young Roswell was of respectable blood on both sides, without being very brilliantly connected, or rich.  On the contrary, early left an orphan, fatherless and motherless, as was the case with Mary Pratt, he had been taken from a country academy when only fifteen, and sent to sea, that he might make his own way in the world.  Hitherto, his success had not been of a very flattering character.  He had risen, notwithstanding, to be the chief mate of a whaler, and bore an excellent reputation among the people of Suffolk.  Had it only been a year or two later, when speculation took hold of the whaling business in a larger way, he would not have had the least difficulty in obtaining a ship.  As it was, however, great was his delight when Deacon Pratt engaged him as master of the new schooner, which had been already named the “Sea Lion”—­or “Sea Lyon,” as Roswell sometimes affected to spell the word, in honour of his old progenitor, the engineer.

Mary Pratt had noted all these proceedings, partly with pain, partly with pleasure, but always with great interest.  It pained her to find her uncle, in the decline of life, engaging in a business about which he knew nothing.  It pained her, still more, to see one whom she loved from habit, if not from moral sympathies, wasting the few hours that remained for preparing for the last great change, in attempts to increase possessions that were already much more than sufficient for his wants.  This consideration, in particular, deeply grieved Mary Pratt; for she was profoundly pious, with a conscience that was so sensitive as materially to interfere with her happiness, as will presently be shown, while her uncle was merely a deacon.  It is one thing to be a deacon, and another to be devoted to the love of God, and to that love of our species which we are told is the consequence of a love of the Deity.  The two are not incompatible; neither are they identical.  This Mary had been made to see, in spite of all her wishes to be blind as respects the particular subject from whom she had learned the unpleasant lesson.  The pleasure felt by our heroine, for such we now announce Mary Pratt to be, was derived from the preferment bestowed on Roswell Gardiner.  She had many a palpitation of the heart when she heard of his good conduct as a