merchant navy by my own earnest desire. I had always determined
to be a sailor from the time when I first went to stay with my
aunt at the sea-side, and I persisted long enough in my
resolution to make my parents recognize the necessity of acceding
to my wishes.

My new life delighted me, and I remained away on foreign stations
more than four years. When I at length returned home, it was to
find a new affliction darkening our fireside. My father had died
on the very day when I sailed for my return voyage to England.

Absence and change of scene had in no respect weakened my desire
to penetrate the mystery of Uncle George's disappearance. My
mother's health was so delicate that I hesitated for some time to
approach the forbidden subject in her presence. When I at last
ventured to refer to it, suggesting to her that any prudent
reserve which might have been necessary while I was a child, need
no longer be persisted in now that I was growing to be a young
man, she fell into a violent fit of trembling, and commanded me
to say no more. It had been my father's will, she said, that the
reserve to which I referred should be always adopted toward me;
he had not authorized her, before he died, to speak more openly;
and, now that he was gone, she would not so much as think of
acting on her own unaided judgment. My aunt said the same thing
in effect when I appealed to her. Determined not to be
discouraged even yet, I undertook a journey, ostensibly to pay my
respects to my father's family, but with the secret intention of
trying what I could learn in that quarter on the subject of Uncle
George.