Mary promised that she would do all that he asked.

"I shall be thinking on her many and many a night, when I'm keeping
my watch in mid-sea; I wonder if she will ever think on me when the
wind is whistling, and the gale rising. You'll often speak of me to
her, Mary? And if I should meet with any mischance, tell her how
dear, how very dear, she was to me, and bid her, for the sake of one
who loved her well, try and comfort my poor aunt Alice. Dear old
aunt! you and Margaret will often go and see her, won't you? She's
sadly failed since I was last ashore. And so good as she has been!
When I lived with her, a little wee chap, I used to be wakened by
the neighbours knocking her up; this one was ill, and that body's
child was restless; and for as tired as ever she might be, she would
be up and dressed in a twinkling, never thinking of the hard day's
wash afore her next morning. Them were happy times! How pleased I
used to be when she would take me into the fields with her to gather
herbs! I've tasted tea in China since then, but it wasn't half so
good as the herb tea she used to make for me o' Sunday nights. And
she knew such a deal about plants and birds, and their ways. She
used to tell me long stories about her childhood, and we used to
plan how we would go some time, please God (that was always her
word), and live near her old home beyond Lancaster; in the very
cottage where she was born, if we could get it. Dear! and how
different it is! Here is she still in a back street o' Manchester,
never likely to see her own home again; and I, a sailor, off for
America next week. I wish she had been able to go to Burton once
afore she died."

"She would maybe have found all sadly changed," said Mary, though