world. Her income was only L400 a year, and that, now that the
Income Tax had settled down on it, was barely sufficient for her
modest wants. A moiety of this died with her, and the remainder
would be but a poor support for her three daughters, if at the
time of her death it should so chance that she should leave them
in want of support. She had always regarded Captain Cuttwater as
a probable source of future aid. He was childless and unmarried,
and had not, as far as she was aware, another relative in the
world. It would, therefore, under any circumstances, be bad
policy to offend him. But the letter in which he had made his
offer had been of a very peculiar kind. He had begun by saying
that he was to be turned out of his present berth by a d--- Whig
Government on account of his age, he being as young a man as ever
he had been; that it behoved him to look out for a place of
residence, in which he might live, and, if it should so please
God, die also. He then said that he expected to pay L200 a year
for his board and lodging, which he thought might as well go to
his niece as to some shark, who would probably starve him. He
also said that, poor as he was and always had been, he had
contrived to scrape together a few hundred pounds; that he was
well aware that if he lived among strangers he should be done out
of every shilling of it; but that if his niece would receive him,
he hoped to be able to keep it together for the benefit of his
grand-nieces, &c.

Now Mrs. Woodward knew her uncle to be an honest-minded man; she
knew also, that, in spite of his protestation as to being a very
poor man, he had saved money enough to make him of some
consequence wherever he went; and she therefore conceived that
she could not with prudence send him to seek a home among chance