honorable in her sentiments, and she secretly rejoiced that they had,
herself and daughter unitedly, been able to exert a refining influence
over so chivalric and noble a character, as she fully realized Captain
Ratlin to be at heart, and in all his inward promptings.

Charles Bramble still hesitated as to revealing his relationship to
Captain Robert Bramble, from real feelings of delicacy, even to Mrs.
Huntington, whom he felt he could trust, partly because he had reason to
know that the mother had favored the suit of his brother whom Helen had
rejected in India, and partly because at present of his own equivocal
situation. But to Helen herself he felt that he might, indeed that he
must reveal the important truth, and that very evening as they sat
together in one of the spacious apartments of the mission house, he took
her hand within his own, and asked her if he might confide in her as he
would have done with a dear sister.

"You know, Captain Ratlin, that I feel so much indebted to you, in so
many ways, that any little service I am capable of doing for you would
be but a grateful pleasure," was the instant and frank reply of the
beautiful girl, while a heightened glow mantled her cheek.

"Then, Helen, listen to me, and if I am too excited in speaking of a
subject so immensely important to me, I trust you will forgive me.
Already I have given you a rough outline of my story, rough and uncouth
indeed, since I could give it no commencement. You will remember that
previous to the fall I got on ship-board, while a boy in the 'Sea Lion,'
I could recall no event. It was all a blank to me, and my parentage and
my childhood were to me a sealed book. Strange as it may seem that book
has been opened, and the story is now complete. I know all!"