The promise had not been very enthusiastically given; but still, as the months went by it was constantly remembered.

The young man, after leaving Cambridgeshire, had remained some weeks at the Shands' house before he had started;--and from thence he had not written.

The request had been that he should write from Australia, and the correspondence between him and his father had always been so slight, that it had not occurred to him to write from Pollington.

But Mr.Caldigate had,--not expected, but hoped that a letter might come at the last moment.

He knew to a day, to an hour, when the vessel would sail from Plymouth.