dear, if it were to be done, and we were unfortunate in it, we might
both have enough old family feeling to think, like our forefathers, and
possibly your father, that we could not marry honourably; and hence we
might be made unhappy.

'However, you will come again shortly, will you not, dear Jocelyn?--and
then the time will soon draw on when no more good-byes will be
required.--Always and ever yours,
'AVICE.'

Jocelyn, having read the letter, was surprised at the naivete it
showed, and at Avice and her mother's antiquated simplicity in
supposing that to be still a grave and operating principle which was a
bygone barbarism to himself and other absentees from the island. His
father, as a money-maker, might have practical wishes on the matter of
descendants which lent plausibility to the conjecture of Avice and her
mother; but to Jocelyn he had never expressed himself in favour of the
ancient ways, old-fashioned as he was.

Amused therefore at her regard of herself as modern, Jocelyn was
disappointed, and a little vexed, that such an unforeseen reason should
have deprived him of her company. How the old ideas survived under the
new education!

The reader is asked to remember that the date, though recent in the
history of the Isle of Slingers, was more than forty years ago.


* * *