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 ship made fair promises, with such a genteelness, that there was no help but to give him credit; and, this being done, he went off with an easy heart. He remained in the Company's service some time; during which, the letters of his mother brought him the sorrowful tidings of his sister's death; followed up, afterwards, by an account that, for her own health's sake, she was gone over to reside in France.

"This was a bit of news," he continued, "which I did not take quite so kindly as I ought, mayhap, to have done, it not appertaining to a son to have the upper hand of his mother. But, having been, from the first, somewhat of a spoilt child, whereby my poor mother made herself plenty of trouble; I was always rather over choleric when I was contradicted. Taking it, therefore, rather amiss her going out of old England, no great matter of letter-writing passed between us from that time, to my return to my native land.