"Where have you been living, then?"

"Alan sent me to school at Miss Lawler's when my mother died, and
there I have been ever since, while he has been these three years and
a half on the African station."

"What, is he in the navy?"

"Yes," said the boy proudly, "Lieutenant Ernescliffe. He got his
promotion last week. My father was in the battle of Trafalgar; and
Alan has been three years in the West Indies, and then he was in the
Mediterranean, and now on the coast of Africa, in the Atalantis. You
must have heard about him, for it was in the newspaper, how, when he
was mate, he had the command of the Santa Isabel, the slaver they
captured."

The boy would have gone on for ever, if Dr. May had not recalled him
to his brother's present condition, and proceeded to take every
measure for the welfare and comfort of the forlorn pair. He learned
from other sources that the Ernescliffes were well connected. The
father had been a distinguished officer, but had been ill able to
provide for his sons; indeed, he died, without ever having seen
little Hector, who was born during his absence on a voyage--his last,
and Alan's first. Alan, the elder by thirteen years, had been like a
father to the little boy, showing judgment and self-denial that
marked him of a high cast of character. He had distinguished himself
in encounters with slave ships, and in command of a prize that he had
had to conduct to Sierra Leone, he had shown great coolness and
seamanship, in several perilous conjunctures, such as a sudden storm,
and an encounter with another slaver, when his Portuguese prisoners