He advised the boy to write to his family, but was answered by a look that went to his heart--"Alan" was all he had in the world--father and mother were dead, and their relations lived in Scotland, and were hardly known to them.
"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.