Joe might have talked half an hour longer without any fear of interruption, for Mary had vanished to her own room, leaving him with his head and body still out of the window, making his strictures and conjectures for some time longer; while the person to whom he fancied he was speaking, was, in truth, on her knees, rendering thanks to God!  An hour later, all doubt was removed, the schooner coming in between Oyster Pond and Shelter Island, and making the best of her way to the well-known wharf.

“Isn’t it wonderful, Mary,” exclaimed the deacon, in a hollow voice, it is true, but with an animation and force that did not appear to have any immediate connection with death—­“isn’t it wonderful that Gar’ner should come back, after all!  If he has only done his duty by me, this will be the greatest ventur’ of my whole life; it will make the evening of my days comfortable.  I hope I’ve always been grateful for blessings, and I’m sure I’m grateful, from the bottom of my heart, for this.  Give me prosperity, and I’m not apt to forget it.  They’ve been asking me to make a will, but I told ’em I was too poor to think of any such thing; and, now my schooner has got back, I s’pose I shall get more hints of the same sort.  Should anything happen to me, Mary, you can bring out the sealed paper I gave you to keep, and that must satisfy ’em all.  You’ll remember, it is addressed to Gar’ner.  There isn’t much in it, and it won’t be much thought of, I fancy; but, such as it is, ’tis the last instrument I sign, unless I get better.  To think of Gar’ner’s coming back, after all!  It has put new life in me, and I shall be about, ag’in, in a week, if he has only not forgotten the key, and the hidden treasure!”

Mary Pratt’s heart had not been so light for many a weary day, but it grieved her to be a witness of this lingering longing after the things of the world.  She knew that not only her uncle’s days, but that his very hours, were numbered; and that, notwithstanding this momentary flickering of the lamp, in consequence of fresh oil being poured into it, the wick was nearly consumed, and that it must shortly go out, let Roswell’s success be what it might.  The news of the sudden and unlooked-for return of a vessel so long believed to be lost, spread like wildfire over the whole point, and greatly did it increase the interest of the relatives in the condition of the dying man.  If he was a subject of great concern before, doubly did he become so now.  A vessel freighted with furs would have caused much excitement of itself; but, by some means or other, the deacon’s great secret of the buried treasure had leaked out, most probably by means of some of his lamentations during his illness, and, though but imperfectly known, it added largely to the expectations connected with the unlooked-for return of the schooner.  In short, it would not have been easy to devise a circumstance that should serve to increase the liveliness of feeling that, just then, prevailed on the subject of Deacon Pratt and his assets, than the arrival of the Sea Lion, at that precise moment.